I have long been a chump for the romance and glamour of airships. A credulous rube, a gullible hayseed, a sucker, a mark, a patsy. I wanted to believe.

Seeing the Goodyear Blimp can still bring a vacant smile to my childlike face. It always has. Cruel the fate, that denies me a sky darkened at noon by majestic leviathans. Events have conspired again and again to raise my hopes, only to dash them pitilessly.

I thought Cargolifter would be off the ground by now.

In June 2002, the company made an application for insolvency. In August 2002, work on Cargolifter's other major programme, the CL 75 lifting balloon was also halted.

Damn.

And whatever happened with Skycat? I loved watching the videos of their drone test flights. Where are they now?

I fear I'm setting myself up for yet another cycle of emotional abuse. The United States Office of Force Transformation (Did you even know we had such a thing? We contain multitudes!) would like to upgrade military logistics and civil cargo hauling with heavy lift airships. Be still my heart. I am in love again.

With a tip o' the hat to Jules Verne, they are currently styling the project "Mobilus in Mobile", "Mobile within the Mobile Element".

Here are a few bullets from their introductory pitch:

• A new form of airlift dramatically increases the overall capacity of the transportation network from origin to destination (strategic and operational distances) and within theaters of operation

• This maneuver capability can overcome area denial and anti-access measures by flying directly to the destination area and offload in austere areas

• Humanitarian relief – massive amounts of food, modular hospitals, water purification equipment – can be delivered directly to the point where it is needed

• The US air transportation system becomes a more robust and agile network capable of absorbing disruptions due to weather or attack

• Military capabilities can rapidly maneuver to critical points across the earth at least three times faster than by ship and be ready to operate immediately – and do so at lower cost than existing airlift

I suppose we can all come up with our own examples, some fairly recent, of just how useful such capabilities would be. What makes me feel all funny inside is that the Pentagon is aiming for dual use from the outset.

The up front capital investment will be tremendous, and the time required for design, construction and certification (the latter often overlooked) is measured in years. To justify this tremendous investment, investors must be confident of significant profits, and this suggests many craft in operation to achieve economies of scale and return on investment. The military also needs hundreds of airships to exist so there would be enough to either operate in an arrangement similar to the Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF) and/or to lease. This means there must be a large LTA industrial base similar to that of aircraft. LTA operations must demonstrate three things to investors and regulators: consistency of operations, complementary capabilities to existing assets, and commercial viability.

Now I'm really in love. Advancing the art of force projection, at a profit.

Airships for industry! Airships for science! We may yet reach that curious steam-punkish future of slow moving aerial shipping envisioned by Kipling in 1905...

Yellow-bellied ore-flats and Ungava petrol-tanks punt down leisurely out of the north, like strings of unfrightened wild duck. It does not pay to "fly" minerals and oil a mile farther than necessary; but the risks of transhipping to submersibles in the ice pack off Nain or Hebron are so great that these heavy freighters fly down to Halifax direct, and scent the air as they go. They are the biggest tramps aloft except the Athabasca grain-tubs. But these last, now that the wheat is moved, are busy, over the world's shoulder, timber-lifting in Siberia.

Or, we may not. It could all come to naught, yet again. Kipling's airships used clean, light, fictional atomics. Shades of "The World Set Free". We wouldn't have that advantage.

Plus, I heard that the shadowy and enigmatic Tom Swift Sr. had Fleury whacked. We may have to make do with jet lifters.