Drone airship hangar coming to Port St. Joe
The premiere aerospace company of Gulf County, Skyborne Technologies, continues to expand its ventures.
This time, in the form of a brand new, gigantic hangar, which will house its one-of-a-kind drone airships.
“It will take about 9 months to construct and again it’s about a 100-foot-long hangar 125 ft wide,” said CEO Mike Lawson.
The hangar will not only benefit the company, but it will also benefit the surrounding aviation community in the Panhandle.
“Well this is a public/private airport privately owned but public usage so unless were into some extreme flight tests on an approach back to the airport we may have to shut it down for 30 minutes to an hour during that day but it’s open to the public too for usage,” said Lawson.
The hangar will be built on the back portion of their Costin Airport property. It will hold the “New Moon of Northwest Florida”, an airship developed with Gulf Coast State College.
But the company needs the hangar for future endeavors too.
‘It’s larger sister ship is why we’re building the hangar its 205 feet in length and about 7 stories high so it is a big ship,” said Lawson.
The “New Moon of Northwest Florida”, is expected to be completed soon making its maiden voyage sometime in September.
Meet the Editor
Wendy Weitzel, The Star’s digital editor, joined the news outlet in August 2021, as a reporter covering primarily Gulf County.
Prior to then, she interned for Oklahoma-based news wire service Gaylord News and for Oklahoma City-based online newspaper NonDoc.com during her four years at the University of Oklahoma, from which she graduated in May with degrees in online journalism and political science.
While at OU, Weitzel was selected as Carnegie-Knight News21 Investigative Fellow among 30 top journalism students from around the country. She also was senior editor managing a 12-person newsroom in coordination with Oklahoma Watch, a non-profit news organization in eastern Oklahoma.