The Finnish airship development company Kelluu Ltd. started its operations in its brand new, specially equipped factory facilities in Joensuu, eastern Finland. Kelluu has developed a miniature, autopilot airship concept that has extremely long operating hours and that can be used e.g. for monitoring power lines in remote areas. Kelluu’s airship product development is proceeding as planned, and as a result, a new generation airship concept is expected to be published in late 2020.
The factory building and product development has employed both Kelluu’s own team as well as visiting airship professionals from abroad.
–We have a world-class airship development team here in Finland. In addition to that, we had a visiting airship engineer from Germany, who has designed airships all around the world for 20 years. He has worked for practically all major aviation companies and now he helped us to get the factory up and running and to further develop our airship concept, says Jouni Lintu, CEO of Kelluu.
The factory facility is divided into two sections. The other half is occupied by the heart of the airship factory, the hangar, where the actual airship building process takes place and where there is direct access to the test flight space outside. The other side is for office work.There is also room for growth: on top of the current 5 employees, there’s space for another 5-7 employees.
In an airship factory, hydrogen handling requires extra focus.
–Most of the facility preparation works was related to safe hydrogen handling procedures. Hydrogen makes the long flight time and ecological data collection possible, and when everything has been thought out to the smallest detail at the facility, working with hydrogen is safe. All in all, the safety produces and the operational protocol are pretty strict, and we do not allow visitors in the facility except on very special occasions, says COO Jiri Jormakka.
For hydrogen safety, Kelluu ordered, for instance, a fully custom-made mechanical ventilation system. Also the airship fabrication table and the efficient hydrogen extractor hood are custom-made: Kelluu team built the frames of the table and the hood themselves and the local FinEq International Oy takes care of the rest.
Now Kelluu has the capacity to manufacture airships of different sizes for different purposes.
– Our airship concept has gained a lot of attention. Recently we have been contacted by several companies from the energy industry and other industries as well. We’ll continue with full force towards the first test flights that we will perform in the near future. The windsock is already installed on the roof for that!
Media representatives are welcome to visit the airship factory facility on request.
Further information and media enquiries:
Jiri Jormakka
jiri@kelluu.com
+358 50 372 6578
Jouni Lintu
jouni@kelluu.com
+358 40 777 0412
PRESS RELEASE
Kelluu Ltd.
April 21, 2020
For immediate release