E-Green Technologies (EGT) - 21st Century Airships, the leading developers of state-of-the-art technologies for mid, high altitude and heavy-lift airships, announced today that it has successfully completed its inflation test of the Bullet 580, which is now the world's largest airship.

The 6-hour airship inflation took place this week inside Garrett Coliseum, Montgomery, Ala., one of the few facilities large enough to host the operation. The 235-foot long, 65-foot in diameter Bullet 580 is designed to carry payloads of up to 2,000 pounds to 20,000 feet, and a dash speed of 80 mph. Payloads are carried inside outer envelope, which is one-sixteenth of an inch thick, but 10 times stronger than steel. The material is a new type of Kevlar, which is used to make bulletproof vests. The airship's engines are mounted on the fuselage.

E-Green Technologies, which acquired 21st Century Airships in November 2009, holds 18 patents and has successfully built and flown 14 prototypes to test new inventions. The Bullet 580 is the first of the company's airships in production for commercial use. The first flight of the Bullet 580 is planned for later this year and will carry a joint NASA and Old Dominion University agricultural and geophysical payload that will measure moisture content in soil.

The Bullet 580 is a multifunctional airship intended to fly at very high altitudes for long periods of time serving as a "stratellite" for communications relays, broadcast communications, missile defense warning, airspace/maritime surveillance and control, position and navigation (GPS), weather monitoring, battlefield environmental monitoring, electronic countermeasures, and weapons platforms as well as geophysical surveys and other military and civilian uses.