The hybrid concept is not really that newfangled. One of the first writers that explored the hybrid concept in fiction was John McPhee in a book called “The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed” (1973).

I do not believe though that Manned Cloud is meant as a hybrid concept. Especially when you look at its specs. It is meant to be a cruise ship with an open deck at the top for guests. This won’t work very well at 170 Km/h.

Manned Cloud is also supposed to have an ability to ‘coast when the engines are switched off’. You can not do these things with a relatively heavy hybrid, but could do it with a ‘positive’ or ’somewhat neutral buoyancy’ craft.

When you look up Massaud’s design concept at Massoud.com (click ‘Design’ | ‘Transport’ and then click on the image of ‘Manned Cloud’) you can see that the lenght is a whopping 210 meters and that it has a volume of 520,000 m³ helium. When compared to the 245 meter envelope of LZ 129 Hindenburg, the biggest airship that ever was in commercial service, which had a volume of 200,000 m³ , it would be only a little bit shorter than Hindenburg and significantly wider. It would be looking absolutely massive (roughly 2/3rd the length of the Eiffel tower) and the ship’s structure will have gigantic surface areas.

With this amount of volume and with efficient modern engineering design it is very plausible though that it could be built with a great ability to float…

But how much I still love the visual appeal of this design; with three relatively modest propellors for its propusion it certainly won’t be possible to propel this thing to the advertised 170 Km/h and I therefore think that the winglets would not be very functional.

you are missing something crucial:

this concept, on which MANY different companies are currently doing research, is absolutely NOOOTTTT a lighter than air vehicle.

the aerostatic component supports approximately 2/3 of the vehicle’s weight, while the remainder is supported by convential lift.

these crafts are capable of ~100 mph flight which is plenty fast enough to generate sufficient lift ‘

the idea is sound. there has been at least 200 million spent on this concept by DARPA for use in heavy lifting applications.

commercial applications also include use as a “stepping platform” for cheap orbital payload delivery.

it is all relatively recen (most of the real work has been since 2002).

most involved parties (Lockheed among many) have prototypes planned for 2010-2012 period