Hybrid Air Vehicles put its Airlander 10 (and a new, post-crash landing system) through its paces on a flight that lasted almost three hours and saw the huge airship make it back to base without a hitch.

The aircraft took off from its mooring at Cardington Airfield north of London at 5:28 PM local time, and spent just under 180 minutes in the air before returning to base at 8:15 PM. During the flight, data was collected on handling, airspeed and operation of the crucial on-board systems for a detailed post-mortem.