It is nothing if not ambitious: a plan to race airships around the globe on a route that will take the vast craft over such famous historical sites as the Pyramids of Giza and the Taj Mahal.
The project is the brainchild of Don Hartsell, 61, a resolutely upbeat Texan who first conceived the idea in his early 20s.
In recent years after completing his last work assignment – a project to help digitise archives for the authorities in Texas – Mr Hartsell has dedicated himself to seeing the World Sky Race get off the ground at last.
And the race, scheduled to start in September 2016, could even stop off in the Arabian Gulf region, possibly in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Doha or Muscat.
Mr Hartsell was recently in Abu Dhabi to promote his race and seek UAE support, speaking to staff and students at the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology.
He describes his pet project as “crazy, outside the box but thoughtful”.
“There’s a possibility the World Sky Race will end up being based for the Gulf coast in Abu Dhabi but we’re not going to rule out Doha, Dubai or Muscat, because there’s interest there as well,” Mr Hartsell said during his visit.
“One of these cities will be our selected host site.”
If it goes ahead, the race would begin at the Greenwich Meridian in London and, over 18 races and six months, circumnavigate the globe before reaching a spectacular finale in the grounds of the Palace of Versailles in Paris.
Along the way, the airships would need about 55 airfields for maintenance and refuelling.
Organisers have so far reached agreements with 44 airfields that could be involved, and secured access to fuel for 20 airships.
Mr Hartsell hopes schools around the globe could follow the race, focusing on the geography, history, culture and environment of the countries over which the airships pass.
Each airship would have a title sponsor and possibly a national, regional, state or city affiliation.
Audacious though the World Sky Race may seem, it is just the starting point for what Mr Hartsell thinks could be a modern-day renaissance in the popularity of airships.
In the 1920s and 1930s, he says, there was “significant technological competition” between airships and aeroplanes.
Back then, aeroplanes could carry a maximum of four people, while there were airships taking to the skies capable of carrying 120.
“When airplanes could barely make it to the next destination, airships were travelling between Europe and South America,” Mr Hartsell says.
“The reason the aeroplane overtook and [became] the primary means of movement in the skies was the dependability, for being able to take off and land without ground crews.
“The disadvantage of airships was having 40-odd people waiting for an airship to move or depart as part of the landing or take-off procedure.”
And then there was the 1937 Hindenburg disaster, when the giant German airship, filled with hydrogen instead of the non-flammable helium used in today’s airships, caught fire while trying to dock in the United States, killing 36 people including one member of the ground crew.
The tragedy, captured by television cameras and now immortalised on YouTube, stifled the development of passenger services and by the Second World War, only the US was still developing military airships.
Since then the aeroplane, with its greater speed and higher payload capacity, has cemented its dominance of the skies.
Yet with energy efficiency a growing concern, Mr Hartsell says the pendulum has partly swung back in favour of airships.
“The physics is that it takes 90 per cent of the energy of an aeroplane to get in the air and stay in the air, and 10 per cent to go forward,” he says.
“The airship is lighter than air. It is going to save as much as 85 per cent of the energy to move that mass forward. That translates into 85 per cent less pollution.”
In particular, Mr Hartsell considers airships valuable for carrying freight in less developed parts of the world, as the craft could reduce the need for expensive infrastructure such as road and rail networks.
They would also reduce the amount of environmental damage that could be caused by such infrastructure.
Airships, he predicts, will become the “go-to technology” for freight transport for those parts of the world not yet linked to major road, rail or air networks.
“We live in the 60 per cent [of the world] where we have roads, railroads, harbours and runways,” Mr Hartsell says. “The other 40 per cent is on footpaths.
“Forty per cent of the world is not even serviced by aircraft.
“An airship could cover that 40 per cent without building those railroads or roads.”
While they cannot match the speed of conventional aircraft, airships travelling at almost 195kph outpace sea, rail or road transport, he says.
Mr Hartsell cites technological advances as making airship transport more attractive than it was in the 1930s, when the gas cells for many airships were made from the lining of cattle intestines.
Major companies such as Lockheed Martin are looking at hybrid designs, between airships and aeroplanes, by developing craft that use the buoyancy of gas with, for example, helicopter rotor blades.
Such aircraft should be able to carry more than a typical airship while not using as much fuel as a plane.
“Today we’re able to move forward with what we know as an engineering community, a design community,” says Mr Hartsell.
We also have technology such as carbon composites, more advanced avionics and a better understanding of winds, he says.
“It was said that the golden age of airships was in the 1930s. With today’s needs and capabilities, the golden age of airships will be this century.”
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
2025 Fifa Club World Cup groups
Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
Group B: Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Botafogo, Seattle.
Group C: Bayern Munich, Auckland City, Boca Juniors, Benfica.
Group D: Flamengo, ES Tunis, Chelsea, (Leon banned).
Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.
Group F: Fluminense, Borussia Dortmund, Ulsan, Mamelodi Sundowns.
Group G: Manchester City, Wydad, Al Ain, Juventus.
Group H: Real Madrid, Al Hilal, Pachuca, Salzburg.
Company%20Profile
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EName%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Raha%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%202022%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Kuwait%2FSaudi%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EIndustry%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Tech%20Logistics%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFunding%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20%2414%20million%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestors%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Soor%20Capital%2C%20eWTP%20Arabia%20Capital%2C%20Aujan%20Enterprises%2C%20Nox%20Management%2C%20Cedar%20Mundi%20Ventures%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ENumber%20of%20employees%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20166%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
2025 Fifa Club World Cup groups
Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
Group B: Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Botafogo, Seattle.
Group C: Bayern Munich, Auckland City, Boca Juniors, Benfica.
Group D: Flamengo, ES Tunis, Chelsea, Leon.
Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.
Group F: Fluminense, Borussia Dortmund, Ulsan, Mamelodi Sundowns.
Group G: Manchester City, Wydad, Al Ain, Juventus.
Group H: Real Madrid, Al Hilal, Pachuca, Salzburg.
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
Company profile
Name: Infinite8
Based: Dubai
Launch year: 2017
Number of employees: 90
Sector: Online gaming industry
Funding: $1.2m from a UAE angel investor
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
The specs
Price, base / as tested Dh12 million
Engine 8.0-litre quad-turbo, W16
Gearbox seven-speed dual clutch auto
Power 1479 @ 6,700rpm
Torque 1600Nm @ 2,000rpm 0-100kph: 2.6 seconds 0-200kph: 6.1 seconds
Top speed 420 kph (governed)
Fuel economy, combined 35.2L / 100km (est)
Specs
Engine: Dual-motor all-wheel-drive electric
Range: Up to 610km
Power: 905hp
Torque: 985Nm
Price: From Dh439,000
Available: Now
