How Hybrid Air Vehicles Is Making World’s Longest Aircraft Longer

Company’s Airlander 10 already has matched fixed-wing history.

Jack Daleo

Monday, July 07, 2025 at 08:00 AM ET

Verified

Edited By:

Travis Tingle

With a length of 302 feet, Hybrid Air Vehicles’ Airlander 10 is designed to be the world’s longest aircraft. [Courtesy: Hybrid Air Vehicles]

Key Takeaways:

Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV) is developing the Airlander 10, a unique hybrid aircraft designed to be the world's longest, combining helium buoyancy with aerodynamic lift, and planning a transition to hydrogen-electric powertrains.
Aimed for certification by 2029, the Airlander 10 requires no runway and is envisioned for diverse applications, including luxury passenger transport, regional cargo, and long-endurance military surveillance.
HAV is actively securing customers and developing larger Airlander models, but faces the critical challenge of proving the aircraft's safety and reliability to overcome public concerns and past prototype incidents.

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Extending close to the length of a football field, U.K.-based Hybrid Air Vehicles’ (HAV) Airlander 10—dubbed “The Flying Bum” by the British public due to its double-ellipsoid airframe—is designed to be the world’s longest aircraft. Eventually, though, the 10-ton payload model could be the smallest in the Airlander family.

“We’ve always looked at larger Airlanders,” George Land, executive sales director for HAV, told FLYING, “and we’d always thought that probably a 50-ton aircraft was the next step up.”