It's gonna be a GoodYear for Blimps

Excuse the little pun in the title but it's true the new year starts out good for airships and it seems Goodyear has caught the blogging virus.
So as always it's quiet for a while around Goodyear and their Blimps and then bang they throw themselves back in to our radar.
Quite an old story that I almost completely missed was pointed out by Michael Vinarcik on the Airship-list. An old Lady who worked for Goodyear for 29 years got a ride on the Blimp for her 100th Birthday. The story that Michael pointed out can be found is this one Her 100th Birthday Wish? A Ride on the Goodyear Blimp! but we researched a bit and found some more. First some pictures from Ohio.com that you can get here and a short video clip from Weathernet5.com available here.
And then of course was the 50th Daytona 500 the most important and prestigious race in the NASCAR series on February 17th 2008 that got quite a bit of media coverage and of course also including the Goodyear Blimp. Rick Zitarosa on the Airship-list pointed out that USA Today featured a great Interview with Chief pilot Larry Chambers of the Spirit of Innovation. It's worth a read and quite enjoyable to get an inside scoop from someone inside of the Blimp. Speaking of inside scoop that brings us back to the title of this blogpost. As you might already have seen from the image that is attached to this article Goodyear has now an official Blimp Blog. Of course we are going to keep an eye on it and inform you if there is something happening that's worth noting. The author of the Blog is Martin Chandler, Assistant Chief Pilot. Since the Blog just started the beginning of February there are only 4 posts as of yet. But I am sure it will be growing. Here are the links to the first entries:

• Cold fronts and Speed Weeks
• Speed Weeks media blitz
• 50 years of Daytona plus one day
• Picture perfect

This is the second airship pilots blog after Keiths Blimpin' Ain't Easy Blog. Go check out Keiths Blog, he recently passed his checkride and is now an airship pilot, flying with the Metlife Blimps. He also posted a nice slide show of the past 5 months in his latest blog entry.
Do you know of any other Airship Blogs that are written by someone working with one of the current operators? Maybe Zeppelin, Ros Aerosystems or Worldwide Aeros?

New Website Discovered: Blimp-Operations.US

It's Tuesday and yes I have let you waiting for some reading material. But this is not the only post tonight, there is of course lot's in the pipes and so I try to do two if not even three posts tonight so that you have some stuff to read. So as the title says i found a new Website. Maybe the website is not new new but it's new to me and I haven't come across it yet. The site is called Blimp-Operations.us and focuses on what the name says: blimp operations in the US. It's a nice little site that i worth a browse it contains a few links to sites that I haven't known before. Two things I want to point out in particular. Number one is the discussion group of blimp operations on Yahoo. Just go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/blimp_operations/ and send a request to join their group. It's a small group with just 26 people and not a lot of traffic usually less than a message per day but they are always pointing out nice links and bits about blimp operations in the United States. The other one is a Flickr pool of Blimp Operations that has some nice pictures of blimps in it. Most up to date are a few close up shots of the DirectTV Blimp.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

So that was the first post for tonight. Please consider subscribing to the Blog via Email or RSS and spread the word, get your friends hooked on airships.

Blimp Pictures

I just found a nice website with lot's of Blimp pictures that I wanted to share with you. It's http://www.photovault.com in their Aerospace and Aviation section they have a nice collection of Blimp pictures featuring the Goodyear Blimps and some others. Check them out here. Regarding the Goodyear Blimps check out the Exhibition that's currently running in the Zeppelin Museum.

Goodyear meets Zeppelin

Today I would like to talk about Jens Schenkenberger a Zeppelin and Airship enthusiast from Germany. He has a nice website called Zeppelinfan.de that is worth a visit, he has a wealth of information about Airships available for the interested. His website is also available in English, even though the most content is available in German. Click here for the english version of his Website. He also has put together an Exhibition about the Goodyear Blimp operations out of Akron Ohio. The exhibit can bee seen in the "Grenz-Raum" of the Zeppelin-Museum Friedrichshafen (Lake Constance in Germany) from November 16th, 2007 to January 6th, 2008. The exhibit features models, authentic airship parts, photos, magazines, merchandise, and more. Unlike many other Companies in the Airship Business Goodyear has the longest running tradition with their blimp business. Check out the articles in German and English on his Website for more information about the exhibit. So if you happen to be in Germany make a trip to Lake Constance and visit the Zeppelin Museum in Friedrichshafen. Go to their Website for more details on how to get there and when they are open.
If you want to read more about the Goodyear Blimps check out these related stories:

• The Goodyear Blimp makes the news.
• YouTube Airship stuff - part 2 (featuring a Video of the Goodyear Blimp)
• Want to pilot the goodyear blimp ?
• Airship pictures roundup
• About "Airship Advertising"

Airship news round up

We are from Vacation and starting to clear the tubes a bit, so tonight we are bringing you a few stories that surfaced in the last few weeks, some might not be really current as of today but just for completeness we try to cover everything we can find. Check back regularly since we are going to publish quite a bit over the weekend.

1. Sanswire's airship comms platform looks like a bag of hot air
   This first item talks about Sanswire and their airship concept, summing up the history from 2004 till today. To me it's not clear if Sanswire is still in Business or not i have not checked their website since our post about the LA County Sheriffs to levy and seize Globetel's Stratellite Airship
   
2. The Aeros 40D S/N 40D-21 Sky Dragon airship gondola roll-out
   As you might guess from the Title of the second article this one talks about Aeros who created quite some press with their Aeroscraft in the last few weeks. But this article speaks about their more down to earth already existing Aeros 40D Sky Dragon and the Gondola that was built for the next model. All critizism aside, that Aeros might have faced, they have a certified airship and they are producing, which is something you can say of very few Airship companies nowadays.
   
3. That Blimp Rarer Than You Imagine
   This article talks about the Horizon Blimp that is flying around in New Jersey. What I found interesting about this article is what can only be read between the lines. There is currently no passenger service on any airship in US skies. You can not buy a ticket anywhere. But this is what Brian and Alexandra Hall from Airshipventures are going to do, the certification of the Zeppelin NT is on it's way, the Airship is built in Friedrichshaefn right now, so 2008 seems to become a very interesting year for Airships, maybe in a few year we are not talking 10 or 20 airships worldwide but more than 50. The demand is there they just need to get built.
   

Met Life blimp Snoopy 2 in Fredericksburg, VA

Today we would like to present a nice Video of the Metlife Blimp Snoopy 2 starting from Fredericksburg VA and other videos of the Blimps. Snoopy 2 is one of the currently 3 Metlife Blimps. Snoopy 3 got introduced just this August, to honour 20 years of the Metlife Blimp Program. So if you do the math the first Metlife Blimp got introduced in 1987 and extended in 1994 to read more about it, read our post about the Metlife Blimp Program with more background information and links.
The video was filmed by Jerry Casper who is also interested a H0 scale (1/87th) blimp to use in a diorama. If you know where to get one of those, or how to build one, please put your feedback into the comments section or send us an email.

Met Life Blimp in Fredericksburg, VA


You might also want to watch these Videos:

• Blimp Over Charleston, WV
• Metlife Blimp
• Met Life Blimp Snoopy One Landing 6-2-07

Check out these Posts mentioning the Metlife Blimp:

• About "Airship Advertising"
• Airship pictures roundup
• YouTube airship video for the break

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Airship pictures roundup

Since I didn't have much time to write a long blog post I let pictures speak. So there are a few more pictures by Andreas Barowski check out his Baroliner Website for some great Zeppelin and Hotair-Airships.
Also there are some nice new pictures from the Flickr Airship Pool:

• MetLife Blimp
• Hanger Number 1-IMG_7232-MV Baylands-crop
• Two Blimps parking
• Parking the Goodyear blimp
• Is this the plug
• Horizon Blimp

Historic Airship Pictures

I just discovered a site with some very beautiful historic photographs of airships dating all the way back to 1908. The Site is called Shorpy.com it's a photo blog with pictures from around 100 years ago, featuring images of the daily life, technology as well as Zeppelins and Airships. Check out the Zeppelin and blimp gallery, for pictures of the ZR-1, the Shenandoah disaster, the Zeppelin 3 and much more.

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

Airship Stuff on Ebay [Updated]

Today I would like to point anyone interested into airship, and LTA collectibles to look into some items for sale on eBay. The Seller, Ford U. Ross is a retired Navy Chief; ATC/AC USN, he spent his first 10 years flying in and maintaining Navy Blimps. He spent 7 years at NAS Lakehurst and 3 years in ZP-4 at NAF Weeksville. This is how he got interested in collecting Lighter-than-Air ephemera, primarily a few artifacts, books, photographs and flown Airship Covers, to include Navy Blimp covers.
He is a member of the Naval Airship Association; the LTA Soc; NLHS; MFHS(Life Member); ABAC plus the Zeppelin Collectors Club and the American Air Mail Society. Also active with the Military Museum and Memorial at NAS Richmond, FL.
And now he is in the process of liquidating his collections. There is a lot of really interesting stuff, in his eBay auctions and definitely worth a look. Also have a look at Ford's personal homepage, which has a collection of really nice classic blimp photos. Please look at his auctions and buy some stuff that interests you, we don't get anything from what he earns, we just like to support him, since those valuable artifacts should not be lost.
[Update] So just so you can find the eBay Items better, check out http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZzccaams