News from Italy
It was a dream come true: Yachts are flying with new versions!
Vita gazette – It is not for nothing that they say, “Dreaming is half the success”. All successful people use visualization, or imagination, to achieve what they want. Pierpaolo Lazzarini from Lazzarini Design is also among the people who know how to dream. Lazzarini, who dreamed of white yachts floating like fish and flying like birds, between the blue sea of our beautiful country Italy and the blue sky, completed half the road to success…
At the beginning of this year, Italian Design Studio Lazzarini, who wanted to start 2022 differently, introduced the Air Yacht, a new hybrid concept as the name suggests: a superyacht for the sky; Technically, it’s a blimp that can also float. The flyable yacht design that Lazzarini introduced earlier this year is now bigger, faster, more elegant and futuristic. Name: Air Yacht V2. As we’re still in the hypothetical “flying superyachts realm”, we’ll leave it to our next posts if it gets any better.
But first, let’s remember the features of the mega yacht named Air Yatch:
The concept is built from carbon fiber.
It has a central body of 80 meters.
Two 150-meter airships are attached to this hull.
Four bridges are used in the connection.
The twin blimps contain 400,000 cubic meters of compressed helium, each powered by eight counter-rotating motors powered by ultralight batteries and solar panels.
It can fly for more than 48 hours at a maximum speed of 100 kilometers.
Filled with helium, a gas lighter than air, the balloon works by accelerating from huge propellers.
The price will be determined for sure after it is built. But the yacht, designed for the very wealthy, is expected to be worth around several hundred million dollars.
Air Yacht V2 features are listed as follows:
As one, Air Yacht V2 is as stunning, if not even more than its predecessor. It uses the same tri-hull configuration, with twin blimps slash twin hulls for propulsion and flotation, respectively, and the main hull as a command deck. What changes is that the flaying superyacht now uses less glazing and more carbon fiber, which, with the added 19 meters (62 feet) to the total length (from 150 meters / 492 feet to 169 meters / 554 feet), gives it an extra boost in speed.
Based on the designer’s estimates, V2 can travel at top speeds of 100 knots (115 mph / 185 kph) for 48 full hours. In the history of aviation, blimps were never quite famous for speed, so should Air Yacht V2 ever happen, it would be setting new records. That’s a big “if” there, however.
As with its shorter and slower sibling (the original Air Yacht can only max out at 60 knots / 69 mph / 111 kph), Air Yacht V2 comes with the twin blimps filled with helium, solar panels throughout, light batteries, and eight counter-rotating electric motors of 950 hp each. The motors are for propulsion and for landing on water. Once the flying superyacht touches the water, it can only go as fast as 5 knots (5.7 mph / 9.2 kph), which is as far from what you’d deem superyacht performance as possible.
What Air Yacht V2 lacks as a superyacht in terms of performance, it makes up for in comfort. It offers accommodation for some 20 people in ten cabins spread equally across the two blimps, as well as a master suite located on the central hull for maximum privacy.
The central hull is smaller and sleeker now, so some of the luxury features present in the original had to go: a pool is no longer visible on the upper deck, and what is shown of the area reveals that the most space is occupied by the command deck. That said, an observation lounge and a dining area are also said to be included, even if not shown. At the rear of the aft hull is a large open deck, accessible via a grand staircase, which can serve as a beach club when floating or the most thrilling open-air observation lounge in flight.
Airships or blimps have a long and controversial history; But several projects do aim to bring them back for wealthy tourists: Celera 500L and Airlander are perhaps the most notable examples. Air Yacht V2 is vying for the same kind of attention, though only on (virtual) paper for the time being.