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Tuesday, March 22, 2011

ROF CARGO HAULERS, RE-VISITED

ALBERTA PRIVATE COMPANY AND LOCKHEED MARTIN TO DEVELOP A FAMILY OF HYBRID AIRCRAFT

CALGARY, March 22 /CNW/ - Aviation Capital Enterprises, Inc. (Aviation Capital), an Alberta-based private company, has entered into an exclusive contractual agreement with Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) to design, develop, build, flight test and Federal Aviation Administration certify a family of hybrid aircraft.
Hybrid aircraft are ideally suited for heavy lift cargo transport, domestic disaster relief and international humanitarian resupply. The aircraft requires little or no fixed ground infrastructure and can launch, land and be serviced on unimproved surfaces and water using its innovative air cushion landing system. It taxis, launches and recovers like a conventional aircraft.
Aviation Capital and its investors will make the hybrid aircraft available to the commercial market. Lockheed Martin will retain rights to the military market. Three variants of the hybrid aircraft ranging in size from 20 tons to several hundred tons will be developed to open transportation pathways to austere locations currently inaccessible to other modes of transport. Delivery of the first experimentally certified Hybrid Aircraft variant is expected in 2012.
The technologies required for the Hybrid Aircraft are mature and have been demonstrated in-flight in Lockheed Martin's P-791, a fully functional manned flight demonstrator.  Work is currently underway on the 20 ton variant, called SkyTug, at the Lockheed Martin Aeronautics facility in Palmdale, Calif.
About Aviation Capital Enterprises Inc.
Aviation Capital is a private Alberta company formed in October 2009, which, through its agreement with Lockheed Martin, holds exclusive world-wide, intellectual property rights to the design, development, manufacture and production of hybrid heavy lift aircraft.
About Lockheed Martin
Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., Lockheed Martin is a global security company that employs about 132,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. The Corporation's 2010 sales from continuing operations were $45.8 billion.
About Hybrid Airship Technology
Hybrid airships combine buoyant, aerodynamic and direct lift technologies to carry large payloads long distances at low cost.  The airships are capable of take-off and landing from unimproved surfaces, including land and water, providing point-to-point access to remote locations or connectivity to cargo networks.  Environmentally sound, airships use a small fraction of the fuel consumed by conventional aircraft and require little or no infrastructure for take-off, landing or securing the vessel.  The hybrid airships being developed and produced under the exclusive Lockheed Martin agreement are planned in three variants (short haul, regional haul and global haul) capable of carrying payloads of 20 to several hundred tons over long distances.  The smaller variant is capable of vertical take-off and landing providing greater payload and range at a fraction of the cost of a helicopter.
Hybrid airships provide a direct, timely, economical and environmentally conscious logistics solution for much of the world's annual 36 billion tons of cargo.  An overview of Lockheed Martin hybrid airship technology can be viewed at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKAyJ3zKTusKTus

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