Today we turn the wheel of time backwards with a guest post by William Chandler a retired US Army Colonel about his skydiving experience from the Goodyear Blimp Columbia N2A.
In September 1965 I was on the faculty at West Point, and OIC of the Cadet Parachute Team. The Blimp Columbia was at the NY Worlds Fair and Goodyear was kind enough to send the blimp up to Wallkill, NY, to the USMA Drop Zone. They could carry only two jumpers at a time, and ascend to only 3,000 feet, in order to fly without venting helium. Here are a few pictures.
The USMA Superintendent was not anxious to approve the jumps, but finally did, but only with the proviso that an officer jumped first, in case there was any difficulty. I'm the one climbing into the cabin. The blimp made a total of 12 lifts, for a total of 24 jumpers, before they had to go back to New York City.
You can click on any of the images to see a larger version of it. If you have a story, pictures, videos, a question or anything that you would like to share please send it to us at airshipworld at gmail dot com
Today I want to show you two Airship Videos that you might not have seen. The first one is from Aero Comercial LTDA (http://www.dirigivel.net/) they are a Brazilian company who are working with remote controlled advertising blimps. Check out more videos in their YouTube Channel and also a lot more info on their Website which is in Portuguese, but we have the auto translated version here for you. And now enjoy the videos
The second Video that I wanted to show you comes from Italy showing a hotair airship. Does anyone know more about this airship ? Have a look at the YoutTube Channel of dirigibile94 and enjoy the video here.
Do you know of any great videos that we should feature on the Blog or do you upload videos to YouTube or anywhere else on the web and would like us to feature them in this very same spot? Then send us an email or leave a comment. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel and become friends with us there.
And if you are bored find our YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/airshipworld with lots of videos from us but also a long list of play lists of other airship related Videos. But that's not the only thing you can subscribe to, have a look at our Forum and our Mailing-List to exchange thoughts with other readers. The Forum and Mailing-List are in sync so you only need to subscribe to one of the too to stay up to date. Last but not least you can subscribe to the Blog either by Email to get our articles delivered to your inbox or you subscribe to our RSS feed and use it in a Feed reader. The choice is yours.
Following our last non Zeppelin we continue to resist the urge of writing yet anotherZeppelin post. But we won't be able to hold off for to much longer. Great news about the Zeppelin NT simply have to be reported so stay tuned. Today after looking at the Metlife Blimps last we look at the good old Goodyear Blimps and see what they have been up to. Back in April we last looked at them. Starting of today's post is a great article on Autoblog called "Above the Autoblog Garage: The Goodyear Blimp". The article is well written and talks about the Blimp how it is controlled and the overall ride experience. But this is not everything that the article has to offer. Along with the article Autoblog posted a picture gallery of 53 high resolution photos from outside and inside the blimp. Some really nice shots in that gallery. Also hot of the press and a big thanks to Ken DeLacy for finding this bit. At the 2:00 minutes mark of the Aero-TV's Daily Update from EAA AirVenture Oshkosh for Friday August 1st the Goodyear Blimp is featured as it made it's appearance to this years AirVenture Oshkosh.
But not only videos were made of the Goodyear blimp the Goodyear Blimp Blog is also always a great place to read more about the ongoing missions of the Blimp. Here are the latest articles:
Goodyear also updated their website adding a couple videos from the Archives to it. Unfortunately the Videos are encoded with a Codec called Indeo Video 3.2 which is not distributed with newer versions of Microsoft Windows (eg. Vista). To be able to watch the Videos if you don't have the codec on your system. You will notice by having sound but no picture when playing the Video you can download the free VLC Media Player which still supports Indeo Video 3.2. So nothing that can keep you from diving into histroy and seeing the christening of the Akron and many other gems from Goodyears archives. Do you have any more pieces about the Goodyear Blimps, then let us know. If you have just recently found us, check out our Forum where you can ask questions and share your thoughts. You can also subscribe to the Blog. Either subscribe to the RSS Feed or via Email and get the posts delivered right to your mailbox, for free.
With all the pictures and videosfrom and of the Zeppelin over London one could almost forget that there are many other Airships out there. So today we once again take a look at what the MetLife Blimps are doing. Last time we talked about the Metlife Blimps was in a post in May were we talked about their PGA Tour footage. So what is hot about MetLife's Blimps lately? Well first and hottest of the press is probably the Announcement and Presentation of Snoopy Three. The regular readers will have a little deja vu here because Snoopy three has already been flying last year from August until October but now he is back for it's 2008 flights. You can check out the schedule on the MetLife Website. This years Snoopy Three operation was accompanied with a nice video. The original can be seen here, but there is also a version on YouTube that we embedded right below:
Behind the Scenes Look at How Blimps Help Cover America’s Most Important Sporting Events
Peanuts® Characters Help Celebrate the Christening of the Newest MetLife Blimp
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Snoopy® and the gang joined representatives from MetLife to christen their newest blimp and to celebrate its 2008 flying season. Snoopy Three, the company’s largest airship is known for providing breathtaking beauty shots and spectacular aerial shots of sporting events. The airship is an A-150 model blimp that measures 165 feet long, 46 feet wide and 55 feet tall. The blimp is significantly larger than Snoopy One and Two and will provide coverage of major sporting events such as the PGA championship as well as various NFL Games.
This video goes behind the scenes with Charlie Smith, the line pilot for Snoopy® Three as he shows you how he pilots the blimp that helps provide TV coverage for your favorite sporting events, such as the PGA TOUR and various NFL games.
But Snoopy Three isn't the only MetLife Blimp. Kieth Krause is the Blimp Blogger on board the Snoopy Two treating us regularly with updates on the different events and missions the Blimp flies on his Blog "Blimpin' Ain't Easy" we have mentioned his Blog before and if you aren't a regular reader of his Blog check out some of his latest posts, they usually contain a short video or picture gallery from the places he went.
Unfortunately Keith mostly reports on Snoopy Two, we rarely get news from Snoopy One. And in general we need more Airship/ Blimp Bloggers. The Goodyear Guys caught the virus, Airship Ventures had it from day one but what's with the rest, when will Zeppelin start a Blog or Airship Management Services. If you need help with it send me an email. So that's almost it for MetLife Blimp updates, except for these three great pictures on Flickr unfortunately copyrighted so I can not add them to this entry but have a look at them they are nice:
So that's it for now on the MetLife Blimps, if you think we have forgotten something let us know, drop us an email or post a comment on the Blog, we love to hear from you. Also remember to spread the word. Thanks to you the readers and subscribers we have had the most successful month since we started the Blog back in March 2007. If you have ideas on what we could do better share them in the Forum or send us an Email directly to airshipworld (at) gmail.com Thanks for reading Airshipworld, thanks for subscribing and thanks for stopping by, let's try to make August even more successful than the last Month.
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.
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?
There have been many ideas on how to use airships, may it be as mobile camera platforms either remote controlled or manned, for sightseeing flights, as high altitude platform, as aerial cruise ships or business yachts or even as surveillance tool. Using Airships in disaster relief has not been discussed for a while but the recent disasters in China and Burma which almost coincidentally happened right around the time when the 2008 ACIDO Rocket Show and competition announced their winners changed this. The ACIDO Rocket 2008 is a graduation show and competition where students of the three schools of Industrial Design in Ontario Canada present their works. One of the Categories was Natrual Disaster and Andrew Leinonen from the Humber College with his concept called "Solarial – Mobile Power Generation for Disaster Relief" won best in category. This is how he describes his project:
Solarial is an unmanned airship that provides mobile support infrastructure for disaster relief and remote communities, generating renewable energy and supplying communications links where they are needed most. Utilizing a skin coated in thin film photovoltaics, and a reversible drive propeller/wind turbine, it delivers clean energy via tether cable. Housing a suite of telecommunications equipment, Solarial also acts as a relay station for radio and cellular telephone signals, aiding the coordination of relief operations.
While that's the mission brief for the project, the rationale behind it was to produce an airship at a modest scale, fulfilling a present need, to act as a transitionary element towards a more sustainable aerospace industry based around airships.
You can check out the presentation on the ACIDO Website which features some very nice pictures and illustrations on how the concept is supposed to work. Even more information can be found on Andrews Blog pulltheskydown.com where he talks about the Solarial Concept in more detail. What's most interesting about the Solarial concept is that it combines multiple ideas into one package. Having a quickly deployed airship that turns into a tethered aerostat that can provide energy as well as a telecommunications relay for on site communications gives new flexibility to disaster relief. The Solarial is also supposed to fly autonomously to it's destination giving humanitarian help organization a chance to call for a Solarial which will then provide the necessary base infrastructure on a disaster site. In the coming years we will hopefully see more airships being used in disaster relief especially if more people demand them, because they can be a solution to today's problems in building up infrastructure at disaster sites.
But building up infrastructure is not only a topic that is interesting for humanitarian missions the military is also very interested in using airships for their missions. Using small airships for surveillance or larger ones as communication platforms. While writing this article I remembered a project by BOSCH Aerospace called REAP (Rapid Elevated Aerostat Platform) which is a project where an Aerostat is being transported deflated by jeep to the site, and then inflated and deployed in a matter of minutes. Check out this YouTube video of the REAP System:
While the REAP Platform is mostly used for surveillance the way it is deployed is quite remarkable seeing the aerostat inflating completely by itself without any human interaction.
Another project that came to my mind is the Selsam SUPERTURBINE a project to create highly efficient wind power generators. One of the concepts also includes a blimp that is tethered and has Superturbines attached to the tether. Something that could be incorporated with the Solarial? Or what about the Magenn Windtrubine also a lighter-than-air tethered power generator. The Magenn project just recently made the first trial test with their system, we reported on it here.
The possibilities seem to be endless when it comes to envisioning the usages of airships for green power generation. We are looking forward to the future hoping to the these projects become reality.
If you know of other projects that are using airships in new and exciting ways let us know. Also I want to thank Duncan Rice, Paul Bloch and Andrew Leinonen for their input which helped me write this article.
You have probably seen those big camera cranes that are used in movie and TV productions to provide aerial shots. Some are up to 100ft high but what if you want to go 150 ft? Well you either need a bigger crane or you need to fly. Traditional means of flying are planes and helicopters. If you want to shoot at one location a plane is not the right option since it can not hover, a helicopter can. Using a helicopter though has the big disadvantage of a lot of noise, vibrations and the enormous wind the rotor generates downwards, so low altitude and low vibration video shoots aren't possible by using any kind of traditional aircraft. But an airship can solve exactly this problem. It is almost silent, with little to no vibrations, can hover over one spot without costing energy since it is lighter than air and doesn't generate downward wind that might disturb the scene that should be shot. So video airships are a great alternative for aerial filming and photography. The Metlife Blimp for example is filming the PGA Golf tour and provides fantastic footage. Check out this clip from the PGA Tour to get an impression. But such a big Airship can only be used outside and might actually be to big if you just want to shoot a small scene, especially at low altitude. Which leaves room for small remote controlled blimps and airships that are equipped with a camera. One company that offers these services is Altitude-Attitude, a Belgian company focusing on aerial photo and video production. They have already done quite a few projects with their camera equipped blimp. Besides having more freedom of movement in the three dimensional space a small airship also doesn't need to be set up extensively like a crane. It can arrive on site, maybe has to be filled with helium and can start flying. By using a wireless video transmitter the airship can even deliver live aerial video. Check out these YouTube Videos to see the blimp in action or go to the Altitude-Attitude Website and check out their galleries.
What do you think about remote controlled video airships. Should they be used more often? We believe there is a market for those airships, allowing directors new creative and innovative ways of filming from perspectives that are simply not possible with a crane. Leave a comment on the blog share your thoughts in the Forum or on the Mailinglist. Subscribe to the blog and spread the word, tell your friends about airships and Airshipworld, let's create something great.
Early last year we talked about the The Magenn Air Rotor System a wind turbine that floats high in the sky where winds are much stronger. Check out our blog post from last year to see how the Magenn Air Rotor works. Ever since that post it has been relatively quiet up until now. Magenn was able to develop a prototype with the help of TCOM and tested it in the Elizabeth City hangar of TCOM. The test where done inside of the hangar but open air test are to be done soon. Check out these Articles with more information about the recent tests which also contain a few pictures of the prototype.
In reply to our post 20 Great new Airshipvideostvnshack from YouTube compiled a really nice Video of the SANYO Airship passage at night during the 1997 Miramar Air Show "Twilight Show". The blimp is doing a touch and go at night. Check it out here
Airship Surveillance is continuing to make the news, since our last post on march 26th they have released two additional press releases. The first one called "Airship Surveillance Opens Its Doors for Client Inspection" and the second one called "Airship Surveillance Advances Test Flight Program". The first release really just talks about prospective Clients visiting the company. The latest press release about the test flight program is quite interesting and talks about new tests with ducted fans for precision handling. This can be seen in the latest video Airship Surveillance released on YouTube. The video does not seem unusal at first but notice the thrusters on the nose of the airship.
The latest series of tests focused on the airship's flight handling characteristics. Using a combination of ducted fans coupled with improved aerodynamic surfaces, R&D1 demonstrated precise handling in a crosswind environment. These very positive results have enabled the Company to make significant progress in its goal to deliver the first production model airship (L2) by late spring 2008.
"The test flight program is focused on the development of several key, enabling technologies and the incorporation of these technologies into the airship's flight control system, ground control station, and autopilot. The speedy advance of the program means we are on schedule with key elements of the program and actually ahead of schedule overall," stated Sandy Mangold of Airship Surveillance. He continued, "Programming of the base control system is essentially complete and we are now preparing to concentrate on refining the autopilot system. This system will permit autonomous flight, once we have established operations within restricted airspace. Truly, these are exciting times."
It's great to see Airship Surveillance making constant progress and we wish them well so that they have continued success with their development.
I came across these great photographs of the Goodyear Blimp on Flickr. They are taken by p.csizmadia which I think stands for Paul Ciszmadia. Besides the great collage that you see in this blog post he also made the individual pictures available. Here are the links:
Do you have some great airship pictures that you would like to share send them to us or give us the link we are more than happy to feature them on the blog.
The Surveyor Corporation is currently working on constructing a small robotic blimp called YARB 1.0 (Yet Another Robotic Blimp) in their weekly update on their Build Log they report their progress regularly. It's quite impressive what is possible with just a little bit of electronics. So if you are interested in remote controlled blimps, autonomous blimps, and UAVs head over to the YARB Buildlog. They also have a video of each development step on their Site and on YouTube.
Check out the Avicta Blimp Page which contains slideshows and a map where the blimp was. The airship is currently somewhere around the Mississippi River. Also read on about the Believe In Tomorrow campaign.
It has been roughly two weeks since the last progress update on the new Zeppelin NT and you deserve to get an update. So jump over to the Airshipventures blog Up Ship! and their current post "The Last Piece". Brian Hall gives us a nice update of the current state and progress. He says, the last piece of the frame is now completed and the envelope will soon be put on the frame. Check out the blog post for additional detail and pictures. The Zeppelin NT also appears in the current issue of the Ryanair Magazine in an article called ZEPPELIN REBORN. The Magazine is the inflight magazine of the European budget airline Ryanair who also provide direct connections to Friedrichshafen where the Zeppelin is being build. Thanks go to John Christopher from Zeppelintours for pointing out this great two page article.
That's it for todays Zeppelin news but we also have our first bit from the yesterday mentioned blimp operations yahoo group. Leo Freitas pointed out an article about a white blimp that is studying emissions from a plant, it's a short article but worth the read. Once again an airship gets used for a scientific operation.
An ultralight balloon complies to the following technical conditions:
The maximum continuous power is lesser or equal than 60 kW for single seaters and 80 kW for two seaters;
the volume of helium gas must be lower or equal to 900 m3
the volume of hot air must be lower or equal to 2000 m3.
He has already posted two videos on his blog that we also would like to share with you. The first one shows him cutting the first pieces of the Envelope:
Do you know of someone who builds a blimp like Dominique does? Which other airship/blimp categories are there in other countries? Do you know more, please share it with us in the comments. Also pay a visit to Dominiques Blog(in English here) and write a comment to his posts, I am sure he enjoys getting feedback.
Today we want to look at a very special airship that made history. The Navy Blimp ZPG-2, No 141561 called the Snow Bird. That went out to challenge the long distance record that was once set by the Graf Zeppelin on it's non-stop flight from Friedrichshafen, Germany to Tokyo, Japan. The two places where the Zeppelin is flying again today. Silver Donald Cameron brought the famous blimp back into our awareness with his column "Another way to fly: blimps" in the Chronicle Herald. The Snow Bird flew from South Weymouth, Mass to Europe, Africa and back across the Atlantic to Key West, Florida marking it the the longest unrefuelled flight ever made by an airship both in distance and time covering 9448 miles (15205 km) in 11 days. So when did that happen one might ask, it happened over 50 years ago and ever since no airship has ever come even remotely close to this record.
These where the Specifications of the ZPG-2 also called N Class Blimp : General characteristics
Crew: 21
Length: 343 ft 0 in (104.57 m)
Diameter: 76 ft 0 in (23.17 m)
Height: 107 ft 0 in (32.62 m)
Volume: 1,011,000 ft³ (23,648 m³)
Powerplant: 2 × Wright R-1300-2 radials,, 800 hp (600 kW) each
Performance
Maximum speed: 80 mph (128 km/h)
Endurance: over 200 hours
How much would it cost to build and operate such a ship today? Would it not be a lot cheaper than 50years ago, wouldn't an airship build with new composite materials perform much better than this 50 years old ship? There is a future for airships, if it was possible to build something like that 50 years ago it's an easy task to build it today. Just take the old design, replace the envelope material with a better one and the engines, too and start from there. A proven airworthy design which could be optimized in future iterations.
So I can only agree to Silver Donald Cameron that airships have a great future ahead. They can provide alternative ways of travel with less fuel consumption than any modern air plane. Sure they are slower but there are lot's of applications where time is not so much an issue. Check out Mr Camerons Blogs Sailing Away from Winter and Silver Donald on Sunday for more columns and bits by him.
If you like this article and our Blog and are not already subscribed, why don't you subscribe, it's FREE. You can subscribe via email, this way articles get send to you directly into your email inbox. Or you subscribe to the RSS feed and use a feedreader to read the blog. But don't forget to take a look at the website, too. Often there are videos or slideshows that do not get delivered in the feed. Also you can find additional links and other stuff on the website which makes it worth a visit.
France should never be underestimated when it comes to Lighter Than Air. Even though Germany, Britain, and the US are the usual suspects for LTA news, France is always a great place for new innovative ideas. Today I would like to introduce you to another great idea that is coming from France. "The Helion project" is a concept of an ultralight motorized glider with VTOL (Vertical Take Off and Landing) capabilities. It has been featured already in Gliding Magazine in 2005 so it is no new kid on the block. Jospeh Loury the creator of the Helion project just sent out a new Presentation about the project as PDF that you can download here. It explains the project in more detail and also contains some more pictures that can also be found on the Helion project website together with an even more extensive PDF with more background information that can be downloaded from here. What do you think of the project? Tell us in the comments section or send us an email. We love to hear more from you. And if you have questions don't hesitate to ask. We will try to get Joseph Loury for an interview to get more insights into his project. Oh and yes for all subscribers to the Blog, a belated Xmas gift. All posts are now published completely with all links and images no more summary posts in the feed. But please, stop by at the website too, we would miss you as our visitors. If you have not subscribed yet, please do so either by subscribing to the RSS feed or by Email. If you need any help or assistance please don't hesitate to drop us a line, we will help you getting set up with feed reader. If you don't know which one to use I am using Bloglines and it's working great for me.
Since I have quite a long commute to work every day, I listen to a lot of Podcasts they range from technology to music to aviation. One of these aviation Podcasts I just recently subscribed to is the Pilotcast "a Podcast for Pilots, by Pilots" it's great to get a glimpse into the general aviation world. And it was even greater when I heard that they had featured an interview with a Blimp Pilot. This Pilot is Steve Wood who was flying a Lightship Blimp during this interview which got featured all the way back in September 2005. I discovered it because I listened through all the Archived episodes to get a better understanding of the current developments in the HTA (Heavier-Than-Air) aviation industry. So check out this 28 minute excerpt of the Pilotcast Number 11 by clicking on the play button below.
You can download the original 1:14 long episode by using this download link If you are listening to podcasts and are interested in general aviation this podcast is a must. Go to http://www.pilotcast.com and subscribe to their show. If you haven't downloaded a Podcast yet, maybe this could be your first one. Let us know what you think about audio content on the page, would you be interested in a Airship Podcast or is there one already out there? Let us know, send us comments via email or post them in the comments section of this post.
The Skyship 600 (SKS 600 N605SK) lately known as the Allegro.pl blimp that toured Poland this summer. Returned to Cardington this week. In one of our previous posts our readers kept track of the airship via the comments as it was flying over Belgium and France on it's way to England. This marks the end of the promotional tour of the Skyship 600 that left Cardington as the Spirit of Dubai in late 2006 and then got the new Allegro.pl Branding in May 2007. I like to thank ragtag04 for shooting some great pictures of the airship as it arrived at Cardington. Also available in his flickr profile are pictures of the Spirit of Dubai leaving Cardington. Click the following links for the pictures of teh Allegro.pl Blimp by Ragtag04: -Airship activity -Airship at Cardington -Airship manouvres -Allegro ad on a Skyship. -Busy scene at Cardington
Note: As you might have noticed the posts are currently less than regular. This is because I am on vacation right now, not having the time and infrastructure to post daily. But stay subscribed, I will be back full throttle in November. Until then, take a look into the archives, there is more than 100 posts to read through and if you haven't read Airshipworld from the bginning there might be some interesting stuff for you to find.
©1965 William Chandler©1965 William Chandler
Aero-TV:OSHCast 2008 Aero-TV Daily Update: Day Five!
