So, ladies and gentlemen, from future visions back to the harsh realities of existing airships,

I would like to talk about a re-engineing study for an in-service airship, the Zeppelin

NT.

These are the results of a feasibility study that we as the manufacturers, Zeppelin Luftschiff

Technik, did together with the University of Stuttgart.

And my colleague Andreas Bender from Stuttgart University will talk directly after me about

the design and the sizing of hybrid electrical drivetrains.

I would like to focus on some operational key questions and commercial facts here.

Before I start talking about this topic from piston engines to hybrid electrical power

trains, as thought after we have seen so many nice artists' impressions of future airships,

it might be nice to see some images of an existing airship already in service.

So here comes our latest passenger experience video to give you an idea how it feels like

and how it looks like to fly on the Zeppelin NT.

So our mission is not necessarily to save the world but to give our passengers a good

time and this is what we are doing in Friedrichshafen.

Every day that weather allows from mid-March through mid-November.

The Zeppelin NT has been in commercial service now since 2001.

And here are some key figures.

The two strengths about this airship is that it has a long endurance, 10 to 24 hours.

We've actually demonstrated a 24-hour flight with additional tanks.

10 hours is what we can do easily in a single passenger day with one fuel tank full of gas.

Typically we do two fuel stops though in order to keep the heaviness of the airship within

a certain range.

The ship burns about 40 kilograms of fuel per hour.

It has three piston engines which is 1950s, 1960s technologies, Textron-like combing I0-360

piston engines.

That's what the engines currently installed on this airship.

It needs FGAS 100LL to be operated which comes at around 2 euros per liter.

The engines have a TPO every 2,200 hours we need to replace the engines which is a significant

maintenance cost factor for us.

Which means with the high utilization that we have on the ships we typically fly 900

hours per ship per season.

That means every two years and a little bit we need to replace all three engines.

It is an all-mechanical drivetrain with shafts, gearboxes, bearings, clutches and so on.

Maybe you've seen me yesterday leaving the room two times hecticly for a phone call.

This was because we had another technical failure on one of our gearboxes there.

It is a sophisticated mechanical machine.

This is why we asked ourselves what can we do here with a more modern powertrain for

this airship.

Spoiler alert, in the beginning we will not reduce the carbon footprint going from piston

engines to hybrid electrical drivetrains.

But our key goal and the key outcome of the study was that we will be able to reduce maintenance

cost.

Johannes Eising gave a very nice presentation yesterday on the efficiency of airships.

If you look at the environmental impact and the fuel consumption Johannes already pointed

out yesterday, airships are already quite good.

The commuter aircraft, aeroplane, Cessna Grand Caravan burns about 13 kilograms of aviation

fuel per hour per seat.

A helicopter about 33 kilograms per hour per seat and a zeppelin only 3 kilograms per hour

per seat.