An arist's rendering of future versions of the Airlander. (Photo: Hybrid Air Vehicles)

(Airlander)

Imagine if your next vacation involved boarding a monster airship for a three-week sail around the world with stops on top of a glacier and in the middle of the desert. No, it’s not a plot of a steampunk fantasy flick, but a real-life marvel of modern aviation technology that could become the future of air travel in just a few years.

Meet the Airlander, a football-field-sized behemoth airship recently unveiled by the U.K.’s Hybrid Air Vehicles. Though it looks like a blimp, the helium-fueled craft is actually a fusion of a plane, a helicopter and a hovercraft. But unlike any of them, it can haul 50 tons, stay aloft for weeks on end and take off from just about any surface that is flat, including ice and water, reports Smithsonian.com.

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Though it’s the longest aircraft in the world at 302 feet, the ship is also more fuel-efficient than commercial airplanes, is lightweight and easy to maneuver and doesn’t need a runway and an airport to take off and land.

With all of the ship’s incredible advantages, it’s not surprising that aerospace engineers – and a few curious supporters – think that the Airlander could revolutionize the transportation industry.

Despite it's potential, the prototype was originally scrapped by the U.S. Army amid budget cuts, the International Business Times reports. But U.K. aeronautics firm Hybrid Air Vehicles (which originally designed it) got the support of some majorly high-profile investors, including Iron Maiden lead singer Bruce Dickinson, who invested over $4 million in the project.

"It's a game changer, in terms of things we can have in the air and things we can do," Dickinson told Wired.com. "The airship has always been with us; it's just been waiting for the technology to catch up."

The HAV Airlander's current prototype landing. (Photo: Hybrid Air Vehicles)

Dickinson is right: Though they may look futuristic, airships have been experimented with for commercial travel since the 1920s. Dirigibles, lightweight airships with propellers, were all the rage prior to World War I and were seen as the next big thing in air travel. In fact, the spire on top of Empire State Building was actually constructed as a docking terminal to load and unload dirigible passengers, Smithsonian.com reports.

The Hindeburg disaster put an end to airship travel development in 1939, and aerospace engineers have been waiting for a more reliable, safer breakthrough like the Airlander ever since.

Unlike its predecessors, the Airlander runs on inert helium rather than flammable hydrogen gas. It flies only 100 miles an hour, but can withstand bullet holes. And weather? Not a problem:

“The vehicle itself can handle extreme weather conditions very well. We’re able to operate +54 to -56 degree Celsius,” said Hybrid Air Vehicles Aerodynamicist David Stewart. “And ... if we are in the vicinity of a storm, we can just quite happily float away.“

The current prototype, dubbed the HAV 304 hybrid airship, is meant for cargo rather than people, which is a revolutionary development for commercial in and of itself. But the 50-ton Airlander 50, which will carry passengers, should be up and flying by 2016.

Dickison is planning to be one of the first aboard. He plans to draw publicity for the aircraft by taking a trip around the world – twice.

"It seizes my imagination," Dickinson told Wired.com. "I want to get in this thing and fly it pole to pole. We'll fly over the Amazon at 20 feet, over some of the world's greatest cities and stream the whole thing on the Internet."

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The Balkans

A German zeppelin dirigible flies over a river cutting through the rugged Balkan terrain littered with smoldering fires during World War I in the 1910s. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)