Transport committee  The forecast is 18 months to complete the assembly, probably another 6 to 12 months to get through the demonstration phase. So it's two, two and a half years?

Transport committee  That would get the demonstration complete, but our hopes would be, then, to subsequently take that demonstrator and put it into commercial operation while the remainder of the fleet is being manufactured.

Transport committee  By the end of 2014 to mid-2015, we will have completed that demonstration phase. The only thing really that would stop you from going to commercial operations at that point would be one of the industry partners saying, “Okay, we're happy with the technology. Let's enter it into c

Transport committee  No, we have not started building.

Transport committee  There are still some design elements to be completed.

Transport committee  To answer that question, we would have to bring you a business plan. We can do that, but for me to answer that question now would be speculative at this point in time.

Transport committee  Yes, I would say that's a fairly accurate statement.

Transport committee  The reality is that someone is going to have to commercialize the vehicle. The military is investing in the technology and they are going to demonstrate that the technology works to a certain degree and there are going to be transfers from that surveillance vehicle over to this c

Transport committee  I would say if you looked at what happened with fixed-wing transportation, the Second World War was really what kick-started that. In the Second World War thousands of guys were trained as pilots; the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan built airfields from coast to coast in t

Transport committee  That didn't work because there was no commercial industry behind it. Essentially, someone jumped the gun and invested a lot of money in facilities prior to proving a commercial market existed. This is why we would like to see a technology demonstration, to prove the technology wo

Transport committee  Most airships are currently used for televising football games, taking people on tours around the Grand Canyon, that type of stuff. As far as I know, there are no commercial heavy-lift airships, whether it's an airship or a hybrid solution like this, operating anywhere in the wor

Transport committee  I don't know if urgency is the right term, but there is definitely—

Transport committee  I would say the U.S. is going to move on this significantly.

Transport committee  Northrop Grumman is building manufacturing facilities. Most of the facilities are built. It will be easy to transfer the development of the commercial vehicle to that facility. We've had some interest from Russia, asking if we could come and set up shop, etc. These are very explo

Transport committee  I don't know how they're funding their facilities. I do know that they consider this technology to be part of their product line. They're very focused on the militarization of the technology. Obviously there are lots of applications there, but that's not what we're interested in.