News from Lockheed Martin
The firm has developed a 'spider drone' to scour the ship's surface and look for tears.
'One of the biggest problems facing the airship industry is locating the tiny pinholes in the airship's envelope,' said Lockheed's Bill Boys, who led the project.
'At the moment, this requires a crew of workers using a bright light.
'Spider can scan the envelope, find pinholes and patch them.'
Short for Self-Propelled Instrument for Damage Evaluation and Repair, the bots are in two parts -one on the inside and one on the outside, connected through the airship's skin by magnets.
They work together by using a bright light and a camera to scan the the whole surface of the inflated craft for pinholes.
When they find a hole, they use a built-in patching system to fix them up - and even take a picture of their finished work for operators.
The company is testing the system on a prototype of its LMH-1 heavy lift airship at its secretive Skunk Works facility in Palmdale, California.
The 120ft-long (37 metre) experimental vessel, called the P-791, is designed to be a hybrid that combines lighter-than-air technology with wings other aerodynamic features more commonly seen in aeroplanes.
Its tri-shaped hull, which towers 21ft-tall (6 metres), is filled with helium, producing around 80 per cent of its lift, while the wings and motor provide the rest.
Four hover-craft style landing pads underneath give it the ability to set down on flat land without needing to be moored.
The P-791 airship uses a vector thrust system to power it, similar to the engines fitted to the F22 Raptor, which gives it far greater maneuverability.
It flies by wire using both traditional rotor pedals and a control stick.
Dr Bob Boyd, program manager for the P-791 Hybrid Air Vehicle, added: 'The air cushion landing system allows us to take off and land from remote areas including sand, snow, dirt or even water.
'These environments don't require any infrastructure for take-off and landing operations.
The prototype is just one third of the size of Lockheed's full sized heavy-lift airship LMH-1, which will eventually be 300ft long and 78ft tall (91 metres by 24 metres).
It will be capable of carrying truck sized loads – up to 23 tons – on top of the airships 21 tons in weight along with 19 passengers.
