A personal Blimp goes Cartoon and XLTA roundup

Dan Nachbar one of the creators of the Personal Blimp and organizer of the XLTA must have been stoked when he had seen this issue of the Comic Rose is Rose. The Blimp seen in the last picture looks extremely similar to his very own Skyacht.

Todd from the Airship-List had found the comic strip first and I really would like to thank him for the find. Check out Dan Nachbars Personal Blimp page for pictures of the Skyacht and compare yourself.
I had previously mentioned the XLTA, which was held from June 1-3, 2007, if you read the Blog you must have gotten the announcement for it. Dan just provided me with some more information on what has been going on. Dan reported that there was a total of 19 aircrafts and 50 pilots and crew participated from 11 states and Washington DC. 2 group flights were made Saturday and Sunday morning. The afternoon flights had to be canceled due to thunderstorms. After the winds calmed down, Keith Sproul gave tethered hopper rides during the evenings. The Alberto ship built by Dan Nachbar and Mike Kuehlmuss flew for the attendees on Saturday morning and in the afternoons there were informal workshops covering topics like "open source" balloon design projects or building a tetrahedron. For more information and a quite detailed report go to this post on the balloon-maker mailing list written by David Tanzer. If you are more a visual person I would suggest to check out the pictures that were taken during the event on the XLTA website. If you want to know even more or join one of the next XLTA meetings like the 2nd Annual XLTA - Seattle from August 3-5, 2007 in Seattle WA or the 4th Annual Amherst Experimental Balloon, Hopper, Chariot, and Airship Gathering (a.k.a. XLTA - Amherst) from May 16-18, 2008 in Amherst MA contact Dan Nachbar via XLTA