A unique experience

Our company DIRISOLAR SAS wants to offer an other way to fly, a unique experience that allows to discover or rediscover the most beautiful places in the world. The innovations patented in the US and Europe grant an availability of the airship like never before at an affordable price around € 70 or $ 80 per person for a thirty minutes flight.

The Dirisolar flying over Bryce Canyon

Our company designs since 2013 the Dirisolar, a new generation airship for four passengers and one pilot that solves technological, ecological and economical challenges bounded to airships. The Dirisolar is designed to ensure the safety of the passengers and to fulfill the eco-tourism expectations. The whole airship is powered up by solar panels offering carbon free flights. The electric motors propel the airship in silence with only 47 db (equivalent to a quiet office) which allows an experience in harmony with nature. Moreover in this perspective 90% of the airship's components are recyclable and the means of production will be controlled to limit the carbon footprint. 

The Dirisolar flying over a rice field in Vietnam

The Dirisolar experience is a flight in all freedom, in safety, in silence and carbon free.

The Dirisolar over the Norwegian sea near Tromsø

61% of people already questioned are willing to experience it, are you ?

Why fund us ?

Nowadays, climate change and the energy transition has become a global social issue. More and more people are protesting and asking their government, around the world, to act on it.

Dirisolar has the ambition to develop a safe and environmentally friendly aerial mobility device. We invite you to join our adventure by helping us go from virtual prototyping to reality by building our first full scale demonstrator.

The company was founded 10 years ago by Philippe Tixier, an aeronautic engineer from Sup Aéro with a great industrial experience in major french companies. Dirisolar's research and development department is located in Boulogne-Billancourt, France. This department is run by five engineers and supported by experts and special advisors.

Dirisolar, on its own funds with € 1.2 million from twenty-eight individual shareholders, invested € 2.5 million in feasibility study, design, simulations, virtual prototyping, test bench, flying model and specialists' advice.

The next step is the construction of a full scale demonstrator to validate all of our innovations.  EASA certification for a commercial use will come in a second time. The first experimental flight will occur in eighteen months and requires an amount of € 5.25 million.

The first commercial flight will occur in three years and requires an additional amount of € 4.7 million which will cover all the tests to obtain the said certification, the means to launch the production of the serial model and to put the Dirisolar in service. 

Your contribution up to the € 1 million flexible goal will allow us to build the hangar for the airship's assembly and to realize structural and electrical tests which are significant steps for the project. The additional funds needed to fulfill the project will be shared between crowdfunding, new shareholders, industrial groups and public funding. We are at the present time in close negotiation with a public administration.

The short term goal is the construction of the demonstrator in France near the headquarters that will validate all the innovations and performances of the Dirisolar.

The long term goal for Dirisolar is to be an airship designer and builder with a few operating sites while renting and selling the Dirisolar to local operators in order to offer the Dirisolar flight experience to the whole world.

The Dirisolar flying over Istanbul

Support the project and Perks

You have multiple ways to support our project.

First you can donate the amount you want using the back it button. The second way is to choose a perk. Every perk includes items tied with the project however according to Indiegogo community guidelines we cannot issue tickets for a flight in the Dirisolar. Finally, you can support the project by sharing our campaign and following us on our social media.

Acknowledgment

Every contribution is important, this perk is a way to support the project! As an acknowledgment of our gratitude your name will be displayed on our website Dirisolar.com.

The story of the design

As well as your name our website and our gratitude you will receive a PDF on the evolution of the design of the Dirisolar. The PDF includes photo rendering of the different design of the Dirisolar from the beginning to the actual design with explications on the development.

Your name on the envelope

Your name will be display on the envelope of the first demonstrator of the Dirisolar. After its life the envelope will be kept in our research department as a reminder of all the person that help us succeed. All the perks above are also included.

First flight live streaming

In addition to the perks above, you will be able to witness the opening ceremony and the historic moment of the inaugural flight of the Dirisolar through live streaming. Those events will be broadcast live for everyone who chose this perk.

In the meantime, you will receive a conference narrated by Philippe Tixier on the history of airships specially made for the backers.

Invitation to the first flight

You are officially invited to the opening ceremony and to attend the inaugural flight of the Dirisolar. This historic moment will be an occasion to meet our team and to see the Dirisolar flying with your own eye. It will be the occasion to find your name on its envelope! All the perks above are also included.

Name the production center

If you ever wanted your name on a building, you are in the right place. This exclusive perk allows you give your name to the demonstrator's hangar. You will be able to visit the hangar during the inaugural event. All perks above are included.

Name the first Dirisolar

If you want to give your name to the first Dirisolar ever built you have this opportunity by  choosing this unique perk. Your name will hence be the official appellation of the first Dirisolar.

The lighter the better

Airships are part of the lighter-than-air (LTA) family in the aircraft taxonomy. Unlike heavier-than-air (HTA), LTA does not require energy to stay in the air. The lift is generated by a lifting gas according to Archimedes' principle.

The Dirisolar will use helium which is a stable and flame-proof gas that can lift approximately one kilogram per cubic meter.

But why have airships disappeared from our sky?

Airships have had a golden age in the early 1900s. At first airships were mostly use for military purposes then they were introduce to civil applications such as the first transatlantic commercial flights. However, airships remained difficult to maneuver due to their sensibility to the wind and meteorological conditions inducing a important flight cancellation rate.

Ground crew having difficulties to get the Clement-Bayard 2 out of its hangar in 1910

The Hindenburg fire in 1937 and the fast progression of aviation ended the civil use of airships and later on their military missions as well.

Why are they coming back?

In 2001, the German firm Zeppelin NT put a new airship into service. This improved performance airship launched the renewal of airships, dozens of innovative projects are emerging around the world.

NASA published in 2016 a file on the situation of airship projects mentioning Dirisolar (page 12). However, so far no projects reached the handiness expected by the market and the operators. The competition between innovative projects is still on, Dirisolar expects to improve the handiness and to greatly reduce the flight cancellation rate.

Today, the societal awareness has shifted for the energy transition. 20% of today’s pollution comes from transports and the aeronautic industry produces 2% of the CO2. The world needs less polluting aerial solutions. New technologies, like digital engineering and very light materials, are now available for the come back of airships.

Thanks to their low need in energy airships are the perfect candidate for solar energy. Moreover an airship possesses a large surface allowing it to achieve self-sufficiency in energy thanks to sunlight. It is the choice made by Dirisolar.

The virtual prototyping helped us design the structure of the Dirisolar to ensure the safety of the passenger and the airship's performances. The mechanical studies cases include test from the smallest component to the whole airship.

Putting in place a rivet between a tube and a connector

Tanks filling up with Helium

Stress on the Dirisolar in flight at 50 km/h

We already have made some test bench of structural sub-assembly to correlate results from virtual prototyping with the reel stress in the structure.

Sub-assembly of the upper part of the structure

Structural sub-assembly of the flat bottom

We were able to validate the flat bottom structure of our design and to optimize the connectors as long as to calibrate our virtual prototyping parameters.

Thanks to our researches and the experimental flights we will define the flight envelope of the Dirisolar to ensure touristic use in all safety for the passengers.

At the present date, the process of construction of the demonstrator of the Dirisolar is ready to be launched.

The team behind it

They talked about us