World's largest aircraft the Airlander 10 is fitted with fins and engines ahead of its first flight (7)

The vessel will also offer business services such as coastguard duties, military and civil surveillance, filming and academic research. Engineers are hoping eventually to launch a sleeper service which could travel overnight between major cities for business customers. An artist's impression of how the Airlander will look when it is ready for long-haul flights across the world is pictured

Unlike traditional airships, the Airlander has no internal structure but it becomes rigid through being filled with helium, at just above atmospheric pressure.

The super-strong hull material was designed by Warwick Mills and assembled by ILC Dover, the company that makes Nasa spacesuits.

It uses a woven fabric for strength on the inside, and a Tedlar layer for protection on the outside, around a mylar film to retain the helium.

Tedlar is used to lower how flammable the coatings on planes are, and is also used in raincoats and metal sheeting.

'The very latest materials, which are both strong and light, are used throughout the manufacture of our cutting-edge Airlander 10, ranging from the bespoke hull fabric to the mainly carbon composite Mission Module, Fuel Module, Ducts and engine support battens,' continued the firm.

'We produce less noise, less pollution, have a lower carbon footprint than conventional aircraft, and have longer endurance and better cargo-carrying capacity than any other flying vehicle.'

The Airlander's power comes from four 350hp, four-litre V8 diesel engines - two mounted at the front and two at the back.

With a length of 302ft (93 metres), a width of 143ft (44 metres) and a height of 85ft (26 metres), it is officially the world's largest aircraft - the biggest passenger plane, the Airbus A380, is only 240ft (73 metres) long.

However, the Hindenburg - the German zeppelin that crashed in New Jersey in 1937 with the loss of 35 lives - was three times longer than the Airlander.

The Airlander's base at Cardington is the historic home of the Royal Airship Works, set up in 1919 to build R101 airships in a failed attempt to damage German dominance of the industry.

The vessel (pictured) was filled with 1.3million cubic feet of helium - enough to fill 15 Olympic-sized swimming pools -in a test run last October and now the engines and fins are being fitted ahead of next month's flight