Dean Ing's delta lifter?

I always wondered when we would get to the future Dean Ing described in his writings, especially "The Big Lifters"

Looks like we are getting there:

++++++++++++++++++

The airship finally takes off - Hybrid Air Vehicles has first civil customer

By Vincent Rice
23:01 September 6, 2011

The Hybrid Air Vehicles heavy-lifter in Discovery Air livery
Image Gallery (10 images)

The famous and well documented Hindenburg disaster of 1937, when the hydrogen-filled airship burst into flames whilst attempting to tether to its moorings in New Jersey, killed off the 'lighter-than-air' aircraft industry, as well as 35 unfortunate souls. Since the 1970's however, a determined band of, mostly British, aviation engineers has been battling to design and build a commercially viable 'air vehicle'. Many false starts, experimental craft and research projects followed (funded mostly by the U.S. military) but viability remained elusive, until now.

Hybrid Air Vehicles, a British Company founded in 2007 by the late Roger Munk and a direct descendant of those previously unsuccessful efforts, has recently achieved two massive commercial wins that seem to indicate that the airship has a very rosy future indeed. The clue is in the company name, however. These are not the cigar-shaped gas-filled 'balloons' of yesteryear but hi-tech semi-rigid lifting bodies that rely on vectored thrust from onboard engines and the aero-lift from the body shape for up to 40 percent of their lifting capacity with helium providing the rest. In addition, the use of pontoons on the underside of the hull that feature hovercraft-like skirts and driven fans means that that the aircraft can land on earth, concrete or water without ground crew.

++++++++++++++++++

Unfortunately, sometimes it looks like we are also heading for one of Ing's dystropian futures, with a divided and weakened "Streamlined America" under a dictator.

That series had a happy ending, though...
H/t Ace of Spades