Stephane Rousson and his pedal powered Zeppy

© Laurence Latour

The last weeks were filled with airship news. In fact there is so much more out there than I am able to write about but hey that's a good thing. So today is about the Zeppy airship by Stephane Rousson. He recently created quite the media buzz with his attempt to cross the English channel with his airship. Unfortunately he had to cancel because of to strong winds. This is what AFP reports:

Bad weather halts Frenchman's airship Channel crossing
Jun 9, 2008

LILLE, France (AFP) — A Frenchman planning to fly across the Channel on a pedal-powered airship, a world first, was forced to call off his crossing due to high winds Tuesday, his team said.

Stephane Rousson, 39, had intended to leave Dungeness beach in southeastern England before dawn on Tuesday for the five-hour, 55-kilometre (33-mile) journey to northern France.

But dangerously strong winds forced him to postpone the adventure, a team member said. No date had yet been announced for a new attempt.

It took Rousson, a qualified pilot and extreme sports enthusiast, four years to prepare for the crossing.

His 16-metre (52-feet) long airship is designed to glide 30 metres (100 feet) above water, with the pilot in semi-reclining position underneath, steering it with two propellers on either side of the pedals.

In 1979, US cyclist Brian Allen made the same crossing on board a pedal-powered aeroplane.

But to really get the inside scoop about the project you should dust of your french and read the Blog "Voyage à la lisière de l'Utopie" it chronicles in great detail the whole project with some really great pictures videos and behind the scenes stories. In case you aren't able to make sense of all the french on the Blog Google Translate comes to help here the link to the autotranslated version of the Blog.
Some highlights are of course the YouTube Videos.

• ITV news du 10 Juin 2008
• ITV news du 09 Juin 2008
• France3 19/20 tentative du 10 juin
• France2 extrait du 20h du 9 juin 2008

and the Slideshow (this is a WMV Video which will download and then play in Windows Media Player) witch pictures of the attempt.

Last year Stephane Rousson was involved in the Theolia Windream One Project, making the attempd to cross the Atlantic with a small 2 person airship. To learn more about the Windream One go back to our previous posts. The Windream One website seems to undergo a change currently and there haven't been any news from the project since mid 2007. Searching the web we also could not find anything about the current state of the project. If you know something let us know send us an email or post in the Forums.

When I read about the reasons why the attempt failed I stared to wonder. The AFP article mentions "dangerously strong winds" were the reason why Stephane Rousson had to cancel. Which brings me to a thought why do airships always have to fight winds, why are winds something bad for airships? Could we not construct an airship that would use the winds instead of fighting the winds? Could a sailing airship be constructed? An airship that uses kite sails to steer? Maybe an upside down sailing ship? Is it possible has it been tried? Having an airship that works more like a sailing ship which uses it's propellers just for low speed maneuvering. What do you think?

Announcing the 4th Annual XLTA-Amherst

©07 by Bethany Seeger

Has it been a year? Well almost we are approaching our first full year with big steps it's not far away at the end of this month. And as we come full circle we can also announce once again a great annual event organized by Dan Nachbar the father of the Personal Blimp.

4th Annual
Amherst Experimental
Balloon, Hopper, Chariot, and Airship
Rally
(also known as XLTA4 and XLTA-Amherst)

May 16-18, 2008 (This is two weeks earlier than previous years.)

Amherst MA (two hours by car West of Boston in the beautiful Connecticut River valley)

All builders, owners, and fans of experimental and ultra-light LTA aircraft are invited.

This is a small private non-profit event: no paid rides, no public audience, no muss, no fuss. Just experimental LTA and the people who love to build and fly them (as well as friends and families, of course.) This event provides both an opportunity to exchange ideas and experiences amongst builders and a chance to fly together informally.

The event features:

• A fascinating bunch of one-of-a-kind LTA aircraft and pilots.
• Nearby or (depending upon winds) on-site launches.
• On-site field for tethering to show off your latest design.
• 24 hour on-site propane available for purchase.
• On-site workshop/sewing facilities for experiments/repairs.
• Pleasant on-site daytime hang-out, cooking, and eating space.
• On-site camping and RV parking.
• A wide variety of motels and hotels available nearby.
  (Be advised motel rooms in this area in May start at $110 per night. Some less expensive motels are a 20 minute drive away.)
• Local chase crew available.
• On-site catered group meals available (with sign-up in advance)
• Nearby dining/entertainment/culture for rainy day amusement of both pilots and non-flying family members.
• On-site playground and indoor playroom for kids of all ages.

The online registration page is: http://www.xlta.org/regform2008.php

Space is limited. Please don't show up without registering in advance. All registration fees and food/fuel deposits are fully refundable if you can't make it. So sign up and send a check by May 1 and everything will be just peachy.

Each participating pilot with an aircraft is asked to chip in $50 to cover his/her group. (All money collected is used for the fixed expenses of the event. This is a purely non-profit affair.) Folks who come on their own (i.e. without an aircraft) will be asked to chip in $20 per person or family. Non-flying folks will also be asked to lend a hand with crewing and other logistic stuff. This is a participatory, not a spectator event.

Contact Dan Nachbar at 413-549-1321 or dan at nachbar.com for more information. (If you don't get a quick response to your email please assume that your message has mistakenly fallen prey to spam filtering and give me a phone call instead.)

The White Dwarf - pedal powered personal blimp - will be flying again

Reed Gleason owner of the White Dwarf has recently made an announcement to the Yahoo Airshiplist in which he tells us that the White Dwarf will be flying again at the Central Oregon Airshow which will be Aug. 24 -25 at the Madras, OR airport. The White Dwarf is a pedal powered blimp that was built for the comedian Gallagher in about 1984 to do a Showtime special. The White Dwarf has been flying at the airshow every year, according to Reed and they will fly the White Dwarf again on the mornings of the 25th and 26th of August. But before they can fly, the envelope needs to be refilled with helium. Reed says, if anybody wants to come and help or just watch them emptying 28 K-tanks of helium into the White Dwarf they should come to the Madras, OR airport on the morning of August 19th at around 11am. Weather permitting they will also make a short flight. If you want to go and intend to be there, please contact us, we will forward your contact details to Reed Gleason. There is a website for the White Dwarf which is quite outdated but still provides some insights into what the blimp is and it's history, also Reed has a small photo gallery with more recent shots of the Blimp in the hangar and in flight.

Links:

• White Dwarf Homepage
• White Dwarf Picture Gallery
• Central Oregon Airshow

Dan Nachbar's and Michael Kuehlmuss Personal Blimp "Alberto"

We are continuing our hot-airship coverage with some news about Dan Nachbars Personal Blimp. The first good news is that Alberto got the allowance to transport passengers. So Dan and Mike, can take passengers with them. Here is what Dan posted on his mailing list:

Greeting all.

After nine months of waiting, the FAA has finally said "YES" to the request that Mike Kuehlmuss (my cobuilder) and I be allowed to take passengers in Alberto, the Personal Blimp! Getting rid of this stumbling block is a big step forward.

To be clear, we could have taken passengers in Alberto long ago if Mike and I were willing to go through the technically required but utterly pointless exercise of obtaining an "airship" pilot's rating. But before doing such a nonsensical thing, we decided to ask the FAA to do be reasonable. And now they have.

START OF LONG BUREAUCRATIC EXPLANATION. SKIP BELOW IF BORED OR BUSY

This entire exercise in bureaucratic fiddling about was necessary because the FAA lumps all aircraft into a one of several "classes" -- e.g. airplane, helicopter, balloon, and so forth. In order to take passengers, a pilot must have a rating that matches the class of the particular aircraft being flown. (Pilots are permitted to fly so-called "experimental" aircraft -- such as Alberto -- without a matching rating so long as nobody else is onboard. The FAA is reasonably open-minded about killing oneself but not others.)

Alberto falls into the class labeled "airships". Things classified as "airship" are distinct from those in the class "balloon" in that airships have a motor and can be steered. But, the fact is that Alberto behaves much more like a balloon than an airship. Unfortunately, the classification scheme is not terribly subtle. So Alberto has the bad luck of falling into the wrong classification box.

In particular, because almost all other airships have pressurized gas bags and use Helium rather than hot air, the training syllabus and testing rules for the "airship" rating are focused largely on pressurization and Helium. Perhaps if our technology becomes more prevalent someday, the FAA will change the airship rating. But, for the present, it is pretty irrelevant to Alberto.

We pointed out the disparity to the FAA. In particular, we pointed out that Mike and I both have hot air balloon ratings and ratings in powered aircraft. We showed why we think the combination of those two ratings is better preparation for flying Alberto than an airship rating. After mulling it over for nine months, the FAA agreed with us.

END OF LONG BUREAUCRATIC EXPLANATION -- SKIP TO HERE

As luck would have it, we won't be able to take advantage of our newly granted status right away. Mike is already on the road to the gigantic airshow in Oshkosh, WI for the week. I'm heading out that way in a few days. (We are giving a talk on our project this Saturday at 2:30 if you happen to be attending the show.) When we get back around the end of the month, we'll start taking people for rides. What a treat!

In the meantime, we expect to have a bit more press coverage. In particular, The Boston Globe will be running a story on us in their Business section and on their news website in the next few days. Several other national news outlets are working on stories as well.

Regards,
Dan Nachbar

So we will keep our eyes open for them, here is already the first story from the Boston Globe, talking about the project and it's fathers. Read the full Boston Globe article and watch the high quality Video which contains some great footage of the airship. Showing some of the inside of the envelope and the patented aluminum tubing giving Alberto it's structure to which the motor and the fins are attached.

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