[ChrisH]

The first question is "what is the lifting capacity?". If it has been worked on for three years, there should be some idea what this number is. Obviously you don't want a control system whose weight is higher than this number.

FIRST stuff is rather heavy in relation to the R/C stuff on the market today. It is also overkill for the application, unless he wants to do pre-programmed manouvers or program it to avoid walls or something else that requires programming.

The R/C gear used for handlaunch sailplanes weighs a few ounces. In this application, the weight could be further reduced by removing the cases for the reciever and parts of the servo cases. These are designed to survive high velocity impacts with the ground. This is not something you need to worry about with an airship. Even if the bag should have a catastrophic failure, there should be enough area that it kind of floats down. So the gear should be recoverable in any case.