When Hokan Colting touched down at Oshawa Municipal Airport, he was greeted by six police cars with their lights ablaze.
The police were responding to reports that a UFO had crashed somewhere near the airport. Except the UFO was an airship from a place known as Newmarket, Ont., and the only alien aboard was Mr. Colting (and he's legal).
"It happens from time to time," he said. "It's kind of an occupational hazard."
It's hard to blame the people who dial 911 when they see Mr. Colting sail over their houses. A former hot-air balloon pilot, he now flies spherical airships that look like immense ping-pong balls. He's not doing it to scare suburbanites -- Mr. Colting owns 21st Century Airships Inc., a company that makes blimps for things that transcend the usual advertising logo flying over a football game.
The company has 13 employees and has been in the research and development business since 1988. It went commercial this year and made its first airship sale to the U.S. Air Force. Another low-altitude model was bought by a Swiss company, Dex Flying Pictures, which is negotiating a multiple airship contract, Mr. Colting said.
The aircraft start at $2-million and can be built to handle various altitudes, payloads, speeds and flight durations.
"We do all the things low-level blimps do, like sightseeing, advertising and surveillance," Mr. Colting said. "But what sets us apart is our ability to go higher."
He isn't making idle boasts about topping the competition -- Mr. Colting has gone higher in a blimp than anyone else in history. While conducting a test in Alberta last year, he set a world record for altitude at 6,234 metres. He is designing a much larger unmanned airship that would reach nearly 20,000 metres. (Traditional cigar-shaped blimps, by comparison, have a ceiling of about 1,500 metres, while the cruising altitude of commercial jets is 9,000 to 12,000 metres.)
Mr. Colting's plan isn't just about setting altitude records -- there are commercial benefits to being able to climb that high. Many people think blimps are only for carrying passengers or cargo, but if things go according to plan, 21st Century's craft will compete with satellites and radio towers for a share of the communications market.
"There's a sweet spot at those altitudes [20,000 metres]in which there is virtually no wind. The airship can move without any worries about the weather," Mr. Colting said. "You're basically above it all."
It's that lack of atmospheric interference that makes the airship suitable for communications transmissions. A high-altitude airship can be made to hover or move in a predictable pattern, so it can send and receive transmissions with great accuracy.
In partnership with manufacturer Techsphere Systems International (TSI) of Atlanta, 21st Century is readying special high-altitude blimps for use in message transmission by 2006.
The airships require far less technology to develop, build and operate than satellites. They don't need to be shot into space on risky and expensive rockets, and their payloads can be maintained or upgraded -- once a satellite's payload is up it's not coming down again (with any luck), whereas airships can land whenever necessary.
"Unlike satellites, airships can be rapidly deployed with upgraded, state of the art payloads in a matter of hours," David Payne, spokesman for TSI, said.
Airships are cheaper than ground-based towers for radio and cellphone transmission, Mr. Colting added. "To cover Greater Atlanta, the towers alone would cost $15-million [U.S.]to $20-million, plus rentals. We could do the whole state with one airship at a fraction of the cost."
High-altitude airships can provide wireless service over a very large area -- up to 118,200 square kilometres, according to Mr. Payne. That's an area about the size of Southern Ontario.
21st Century's high-altitude communications platforms will be unmanned and computer controlled, although a pilot on the ground will be able to override the onboard computer and fly the airship or reprogram its course.
At the moment, the aircraft are propelled by turbo diesel generators that drive electric motors. The company's smaller 60-foot model can fly for about a day, and an around-the-world airship, being designed for an attempt at the longest flight in the Earth's atmosphere, will stay aloft for as long as 14 days without refuelling, 21st Century spokesman Chris Ballard said.
The communications blimps will be able to cruise even longer. "Our first models will fly for up to one month at a time," Mr. Ballard said. The company eventually plans to switch to fuel cells and solar panels to make the ships "capable of multiyear flights."
If all of this seems like a blue-sky dream, Mr. Payne and Mr. Colting are quick to point out that there are some important parties who take the project very seriously. Mr. Payne said "departments within the U.S. government" have shown interest in the airships (although he wouldn't elaborate), and added that the majority of the company's funding so far has come from the U.S. military.
"They are very innovative," he said. "And they have put us on their priority list."