JEANNE MESERVE, CNN ANCHOR: Engineers in Britain have come up with plans for a massive airship that could play a crucial role in future humanitarian aid efforts. Kevin Dunn has that story.</s>KEVIN DUNN, ITN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is only a 50- foot model, but eventually this aircraft will be 100 times larger, an airship the size of Wembley Stadium. Its technology is revolutionary, an airship hull above a hover craft-type cushion. It means it can land anywhere. Its designer says recent disasters such as the floods in Mozambique have highlighted its potential value.</s>ROGER MUNK, SKYCAT DESIGNER: Watching Mozambique and the difficulties of the Western governments had in terms of getting freight out to the people who needed it. No problem in getting into a port by the sea, but that isn't where the people need the food, for example. With this machine, you could literally fly in with a thousand tons of payload and set the thing down on water if necessary, you know, where a flooded area is, marsh, whatever, right alongside where the people who need it.</s>DUNN: The Mozambique disaster also underlined the difficulties and and limitations of heavy-lift air transport. Even the largest transporters have limited capacity and they need long runways to land on. The SkyCat will fly at over 100 knots, nothing like a jet aircraft, but four times the speed of a sea tanker and with the payload of 10 jumbo jets. (on camera): The first smaller version of the SkyCat is projected to fly in a years time, with the giant SkyCat 1000 in 2003 or 2004, revolutionizing, its designers hope, the future of heavy-lift air transport. Kevin Dunn, ITN, Bedfordshire.
Britain Engineers Have Plans For Massive Airship to Help Out in Future Humanitarian Aid Efforts