
The massive hangar, measuring 360m long by 210m wide by 107m high, was built by Carl von Gablenz, a German entrepreneur who thought that helium airships were the future of heavy machine transport. His company, CargoLifter AG, used the hangar to house a prototype airship capable of carrying 60 tons, but by 2002 they were bankrupt and ordered to sell the building to Tanjong, a Malaysian company. Tanjong was not in the airship business.
Instead they repurposed the hangar for their Tropical Islands Resort, a massive indoor theme park. They welded the 600-ton steel doors shut, replaced its steel skin with 17,000sqm of translucent film, and brought along everything they needed to build a totally immersive, totally fake paradise: 183m of sandy beach for a fake shoreline, 50,000 trees of some 600 varieties, comprising the world’s biggest indoor rainforest, and, of course, a nine-storey water slide that sends riders shooting down into a 2500sqm swimming pool at 70km/h. Yikes. I think I’d feel safer on the airship. [Air Space Mag via BoingBoing]



















LucasF
Friday, December 24, 2010 at 1:14 PMI normally wouldn’t whinge about the quality of content on Giz because I love it but this article gets kind of confusing half way down – its a short article so if you have to stop and think what the writer is trying to say it kind of kills it for you. example – “they were bankrupt and ordered to sell the building to a Tanjong, a Malaysian company.” – either remove the extra “a” before “Tanjong” or remove the “a” before Malaysian and change it to Malaysia.
and then…
“183m feet of sandy beach” – which is it? metres or feet?
Hate whinging but its just annoying trying to read jumbled text. Ye dont need to be publishin’ this if ye dont want. (been playing Lil Pirates on iPhone, will seek help soon) I only bother for the sake of providing the feedback to you guys, not the world.
LucasF
Friday, December 24, 2010 at 1:50 PMI see you still published my comment. Very Assangeist of you. I approve. BTW – do you like my new word? “Assangeism”. Not sure what it means yet…will let you know. Also I like that I can reply to myself…I feel less alone.
P3t3
Friday, December 24, 2010 at 7:41 PMYou are not alone.
Dave
Saturday, December 25, 2010 at 11:14 PMYour rant made me lol… thank you
Warren Richards
Saturday, December 25, 2010 at 9:54 AMYou’re never alone,that’s what the voice’s in my head keep saying, that and “the Assangeist fly’s at midnight”,
Joe
Sunday, December 26, 2010 at 3:26 AMYou should have mentioned as well that the former CargoLifter hangar isn’t necessarily well suited to house this kind of ‘resort’. Purportedly, the new owners are suffering because of astronomical bills for heating as Germany can be rather cool and this structure can’t be described as well isolated to be exact.
Trevor Hunt
Monday, December 27, 2010 at 9:01 AMHi folks,
What Von Gobbleyourmoney and his buddies did with 283 million dollars of investors money defies belief, as all they did was build this mega garden shed that no one wanted and was almost given to a greenhouse man when they finished wasting all the cash. They never even built a certified airship apart from a 2 seat joke called Joey, that demostrated they had no idea what they were doing when it came to modern airships.
The silly balloon crane in the picture just blew to bits one night as a final demonstration of what happens when a very efficient marketing and public relations team, gets let loose by an out of control management team with political connections, who are determined to waste or loose a bunch of money playing fast and loose with an aviation sector they have no clue about, other than it’s ability to attract attention and line a few interesting Swiss bank accounts. The various lawyers are still trying to figure out where all the money went that finished up building this Berlin greenhouse.
If you want a Helium sniffing laugh try http://www.hybridblimp.net for the worlds only lighter than air web site.
Regards JB
PS. The only passenger carrying blimp they ever operated at Cargolifter was a Skyship 600, designed by none other than Roger Munk from Blighty, who is the very designer that both the US Army and US Air Force chose to pick for both the MAV 6 big blimp program and most important of all the US Army LEMV program that is now building the HAV 304 that is desperately required in Afghanistan for surveillance. A second version of the hybrid air vehicle, called Skycat will even do long range point to point cargo operations, something the old boys at Cargolifter only dreamed about.
Trevor Hunt
Monday, December 27, 2010 at 9:09 AMHi there,
If you want to see more on the new hybrid air vehicles or modern airships try http://www.hybridairship.net or for the world record seekers try http://www.blimpingaround.com
Regards JB