ADVANCED TECHNOLOGIES GROUP

ATG is the trading name, from June 2000, of Airship Technologies Services Ltd, which was created in February 1996 to revive the activities of the former Airship Industries company, responsible for the British-designed Skyship 500/600 series.
ATG's design and production team draws on experience in designing and operating more transport category, passenger certified airships than any other world operator. Current work is directed towards two totally new concepts in lighter-than-air design: SkyCat, a hybrid air vehicle, and StratSat, a stratospheric telecommunications platform. SkyCat has a fully amphibious design incorporating a sophisticated lifting body, ellipsoidal cross-section hull and a catamaran hover cushion landing system which equips it to land on a grass field, a swamp, sand, snow or open sea.
In March 2002, ATG announced the first flight of its AT-10 airship, intended for advertising work, as a camera platform, and for surveillance and pilot training applications. The AT-10, SkyCat 20 and StratSat will all be powered by ATG diesel engines ranging from 74.6 to 447 kW (100 to 600 hp). In late 2002, ATG announced receipt of a contract from Japanese engine maker IHI for a propulsion system for a low-altitude flight test airship, an initial stage in Japan's programme to develop an unmanned airship-based stratospheric telecommunications and surveillance system.
ATG was reported in late 2002 to be in discussions concerning the possibility of combining its activities with those of Germany's CargoLifter, but no definitive outcome of these talks had emerged by mid-2003.