Why an airship was spotted hovering over this central Alberta town

Nadeer Hashmi · CBC News · Posted: Oct 12, 2026 9:00 AM EDT

Photo courtesy of: 3 Points in Space Media

TC Energy piloted the autonomous airship to inspect local pipeline corridors

A rare sight in the sky over central Alberta last week turned heads and had people asking: Was that really a 20-metre blimp?

While some may have seen a Goodyear Blimp at a sporting event, it’s not every day you see such a sight in rural Alberta.

In this case, it was a solar-powered airship, roughly the size of a school bus, testing a new way to collect aerial survey data near Rocky Mountain House, about 200 kilometres southwest of Edmonton.

A joint crew from Cloudline, a South African aerospace firm that manufactured the airship, and its Canadian operational partner, 3 Points in Space Media, ran flight tests with the airship out of the Rocky Mountain House Airport last week.

“It’s essentially the same as a helium party balloon,” said Sean Adams, founder and CEO of 3 Points in Space Media, as the crew conducted a trial with TC Energy to inspect pipeline corridors in the region.

He noted airship technology actually goes back many years, though they are doing something a little different from the blimps of the past.

“This particular technology, as far as I know, is very new,” Adams said, and the application of combining control systems with the blimp make it an autonomous airship.

Read original full article by Nadeer Hashmi:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/airship-rocky-mountain-house-9.7376380?shem=dsdf,sharefoc,agadiscoversdl,,sh/x/discover/m1/4