Southland blimp maker Worldwide Aeros turns 25
Worldwide Aeros Corp., a Montebello developer and maker of blimps used for surveillance, advertising and transport, is celebrating 25 years of building “lighter than air” aircraft.
The company was founded by Igor Pasternak, 47, in 1987 in the Ukraine. He immigrated to U.S. in 1993 and continued to built the business in Southern California.
Later this year, the company expects to complete and demonstrate its most ambitious project yet: a new cargo aircraft being built for the Pentagon using technology that would enable multi-ton shipments to be transported via a blimp-like craft.
The Aeroscraft would operate without complicated ballast-shifting requirements that have limited airships’ ability to carry heavy cargo. It is being built in Montebello, where the company has 90 employees making a variety of blimps and other aircraft for businesses and the government.
“2012 will prove a monumental year at Aeros,” the company said, boasting that it has “solved a 100-year-old problem of buoyancy control, and when the Aeroscraft will be flown for the very first time it will change the history of aviation forever.”
Founder Pasternak said, “We are excited about our future and the opportunities ahead.”
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