Airship, a partnership between Transportes Bertolini and Engevix for the production of cargo airships, has already received its first orders. The first vehicle will be delivered to Eletronorte in 2016 and will be used to transport personnel, equipment and power transmission towers to remote areas of the Amazon.
The second will be acquired by the carrier based in Bento Gonçalves (RS), which owns 50% of the business, to move goods in containers between the Manaus Free Trade Zone and a road distribution center in Goiânia.
Director of Bertolini and member of the Board of Directors of Airship, Paulo Vicente Caleffi is mysterious about the volumes of orders. In a logistics forum promoted by the Brazil-German Chamber of Commerce, in Porto Alegre, the executive limited himself to saying that the contract with Eletronorte is worth R$ 30 million and that the carrier will start operating the Manaus-Goiânia route with a vehicle by the second half of 2017.
"The government of [the US state] Alaska also made contact with us", added the businessman, who did not inform the sale value of future vehicles. “The first will be more expensive, but with the increase in production the price tends to fall”, he commented. The company is still developing “balloon-crane” projects and already produces aerostats (fixed floating vehicles), at least three of which are used in surveillance missions in the country, added Caleffi, without giving details.
The Airship airship began to be developed in 1992 in partnership with the Army, as part of a project that sought alternatives for transporting supplies in the Amazon. During the studies, technicians visited eight countries that dominate the technology and the use of the equipment to transport wood logs in Canada and ore in the United States drew attention.
Later, Engevix, from the Desenvix group, entered the business, interested in finding a system for moving building materials in remote areas. Today the company is headquartered in São Carlos (SP), where 50 engineers already work and a factory will be built for the prototype of the vehicle. The environmental license for the installation of the unit has just been issued, but production on an industrial scale may be carried out later in another city, which has not been revealed.
According to Caleffi, in the last three years Airship has already invested R$ 30 million in the project, which will be presented to President Dilma Rousseff. The National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES) offered a credit line of R$ 130 million, but the idea is to borrow only R$ 9 million, said the businessman. Caleffi said that, at least for now, there are no plans to produce vehicles for tourist flights.
The airships will use non-flammable helium gas for buoyancy and will have four diesel engines that will allow them to fly at 100 kilometers per hour up to 700 meters in height. With them, a trip between Manaus and Goiânia will take just 26 hours, against eight days, on average, needed to complete the journey by truck. The freight price, according to Caleffi, will be “competitive” in relation to other modes of transport.
The first airships will be able to carry up to 54 tons of cargo in containers, equivalent to the capacity of two trucks, with the possibility of reaching 500 tons in the future. The crew will consist of four people and the flight autonomy will reach six without refueling or two months if the gas compartment is perforated by two cannon shots. The vehicle will be made with a carbon fiber structure, which makes it 80% lighter than the old blimps, which flew during the 1930s, Caleffi said.
Valor contacted Eletronorte's advisory, but until the closing of this edition, no representative of the company was available to comment on the matter.
Source: Valor Econômico
By Sérgio Ruck Bueno | from Porto Alegre
