Manufacturer finds variety of uses for modern blimps.

Unique Product

Worldwide Aeros

Tarzana

In the world of advertising aircraft, what most people think of as blimps, Worldwide Aeros is already well known. It builds blimps and other lift aircraft tethered to the ground, called Aerostats, to sell to customers across the world.

Its products are used by military clients that need to float communications equipment in the air in order to allow troops to connect with each other or advertisers looking to attract football fans' attention, even by governments that want to monitor waterways with infrared cameras to catch drug smugglers in action.

This past year it made progress in what would be its most high profile project to date. The Tarzana company is working hard to win a Pentagon contract to build a 900-foot long aircraft that includes elements of blimps, helicopters and jets that would move supplies and troops into war zones.

Its chief competition in this effort is Lockheed Martin, which has assigned its Skunkworks unit in Palmdale to work on the project. The Pentagon is planning to award a $100 million contract sometime later this year for one company to build a prototype.

"We don't see (Lockheed) as a technical competitor," said Edward Pevzner, the company's vice president of business development. "Lockheed is an aircraft company, they build airplanes, that's what they specialize in and that's what they're good at. They're basically the best aircraft development house in the world, but this is not an aircraft, this is a completely new vehicle."

Worldwide Aeros, headed by Igor Pasternak, has faced larger challenges than outthinking one of the largest aircraft companies in the world.

Pasternak was born in the Ukraine, and formed his company in 1988, shortly after Mikhail Gorbachev passed the country's economic reforms. He first started building aerostats to monitor the air over Chernobyl after the nuclear accident in 1986.

Heading to the U.S.

After the country plunged into an economic downturn and an eventual collapse of the Soviet Union altogether, Pasternak found it more difficult to find financing, and he decided, along with several employees and some of his family, to immigrate to the United States.

Pasternak settled the business for a while in Delaware in 1992, and got work with Westinghouse, which was building a heavy-lift aircraft for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but the project was canceled after the 1992 election.

"In 1992 Governor Pete Wilson invited the company to California," said Pevzner.

Wilson asked the company to set up shop in California's Castle Air Force Base, and the company started building airships and aerostats for commercial clients.

Pasternak found that Southern California would be a better location because of its proximity to aircraft parts suppliers and the aerospace employment based sustained by giants like Boeing and Rocketdyne.

"We got a facility in Riverside, but then we realized the commercial market was the wave of the future for the company, and the customer base is easier to do business with in Los Angeles," said Pevzner.

Effects of 9/11

The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 had a direct impact on the company, however. It had recently begun construction of a new airship when the Federal Aviation Administration restricted airspace over stadiums and public events.

Pasternak was forced to refocus on military research and development, leading it to the Pentagon's heavy lift aircraft prototype project.

In 2002, the company's total revenues were $1.2 million, improving slightly to $2 million the next to years, and down to $1.4 million in 2005 because of the delay of an airship delivery. In the first six months of the current fiscal year, however, the company has reported $4 million in revenue.

Whether the company wins the Pentagon contract or not, Pasternak said the new airship could make it possible to have a "cruise ship in the sky," reviving the commercial prospects for a blimp at affordable prices for the first time in decades.

JONATHAN D. COLBURN

Staff Reporter