“Expect traffic on the 101 highway in Mountain View, Calif., to be even worse in the days or weeks ahead, as motorists slow down to watch Google cofounder Sergey Brin’s 124-meter-long airship, Pathfinder 1, launch into the air for the first time.

IEEE Spectrum has learned that LTA Research, the company that Brin founded in 2015 to develop airships for humanitarian and cargo transport, received a special airworthiness certificate for the helium-filled airship in early September…

Although its rigid design hearkens back to the gargantuan airships of the early 20th century, Pathfinder 1 is almost completely different from any large airship that has flown before. Crucially, its reported 3,000 welded titanium hubs and 10,000 carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer tubes are light enough that it can use nonflammable helium instead of explosive hydrogen as a lifting gas.”

From IEEE Spectrum.