Chinese Involvement in Lighter-than-Air Craft Research

Here are some interesting figures for comparison between China's involvement with Lighter-than-Air craft (airships) and ours, adapted from articles in Defense News :

Chinese companies, universities, military units, and organizations conducting research on Lighter-than-Air craft :

        Aircraft Flight Test Technology Institute

        Air Force Engineering University

        Beijing Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

        Beijing Institute of Space Mechanics and Electricity

        Donghua University

        Beijing Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

        Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics

        National University of Defense Technology

        Units of the Peoples  Liberation  Army in Shandong

        Wuhan Huazhong University of Science and Technology

        Suzhou Fangzhou Aeromodeling Company manufactures an airship for        police and military use.

        Hua Jiao manufactures an airship for "surveillance, minesweeper, and        special operations" , including anti-terrorism, riots, forest fires, and     hostage rescue.

        Beijing Buaa Lonsan Aircraft Company produces a surveillance   platform airship equipped with camera, infrared thermal imaging,     radar, and a signal relay.

        Aerospace Life Support Industries produces an LTA airship that can    carry four personnel and a variety of sensor payloads.

        The Chinese Academy of Surveying, together with the China Special   Vehicle Research Institute, has developed  an unmanned airship,         helium LTA. with a practical ceiling of 3,250 feet capable of         surveillance missions for "counter-separatist"  campaigns.

... with calls for greater research and development of LTA's in the future.

Let's contrast that with Texas A & M, which to our knowledge is the only American college that includes LTA airships in its undergraduate teaching and research efforts.

Dr. Rajkumar Pant, an Associate Professor of Aerospace Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay, arguably one of the finest engineering and technology college-level schools in the world, has set up a laboratory at Texas A & M in which student teams learn to design, build, and fly LTA airships. This past summer, Texas A & M students in the Aerospace Engineering Department, guided by Dr. Pant, are becoming familiar with the advantages, issues, and difficulties of airship construction and operation. The culmination of this first course will involve the remote control of these small scale airships by flying them indoors at the Space Engineering Research Center (SERC) lab .
The small airship, 11 feet in length and 5 feet (presumably) in diameter, has been designed to carry a camera, a wireless transmitter, and a smart phone to simulate an actual operational mission. Larger airships will be able to carry out more complex missions, such as disaster response, homeland security, and communications relay. Dr. Pant and his colleague, Dr. Girimaji, plan to build a curriculum in airship design at Texas A & M , and conduct research into other payload possibilities as well as high altitude operations.
We are pleased to see this effort taking root at an American school, and would like to see similar programs enacted at, for example, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, in Florida, and other engineering schools with an aeronautical turn of mind across the country. We are familiar with similar programs taking place with remotely-operated underwater vehicles ("robot submarines"), which have led to the establishment of permanent curricula in the field, and to secondary school competitions between teams from schools nationwide, culminating in a sort of underwater World Series . This has resulted in the healthy development of significant national interest in the subject in North America. We hope these programs succeed and flourish.