=FUTURE>FLIGHT - an airship story - Part 4

It's been quite a while since we have last posted an episode of Paul Boldts novel =FUTURE>FLIGHT. This was mainly because there was so much going on that we just could not get it through our series of tubes all the way to the blog. But today the 4th instalment finally made it to the front page, the saga continues. You have not read parts 1 to 3? Well, no problem here they are:
=FUTURE>FLIGHT - an airship story - Part 1
=FUTURE>FLIGHT - an airship story - Part 2
=FUTURE>FLIGHT - an airship story - Part 3

=FUTURE>FLIGHT

Installment Four: Renaissance
©2007 by Paul Boldt

I clicked on information about the Boldt Airship Company, or as the advertising went, “They’re BAC(k)”. Some of the info was about how this type of transportation came back into existence, after a long hiatus in mothballs. Nobody had been successful in creating a large commercial airship program for the longest time. Some even argued that DELAG, (DEutsche Luftschiffahrts Aktien Gesellschaft), the German Zeppelin Airshiplines wasn’t even considered independently financially successful as it had to be government backed in its early development of early zeppelins. But if you look at it, seemed like every type of transportation down the years had been government backed, from the early sailing ships from Columbus’ time, the railroads that conquered various parts of the globe, (some unsuccessfully like the ill fated railway that tried to traverse the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, initially beaten back by the native Indians, till the foreign government backed rail company electrified the rails, killing Indians to teach them a lesson. This rail line was eventually stopped dead in its tracks after actually operating for a number years, by a revengeful mother nature. Heavier than air, had major government back from it’s inception throughout its rapid development through the war years and even to this day with multi-company bailouts.

B.A.C. was no exception. Government backing initially came about with the deployment of the Military Disaster Relief Enforcements Program (MD.Rep or aka Dr.Rep), designed many years after the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which brought together commercial, military, and humanitarian interests for a faster (leased) government relief turnaround for natural catastrophe victims in the US and around the globe, as well as a band aid if ever a nuclear devastation were to occur.

No direct financial backing was given initially, but in exchange for free lease of land for 30 years (well a $1.00 changed hands- at least on paper), and some infrastructure just east but still within Miramar MCAS (Marine Corps Air Station in San Diego , CA. USA) an exchange of an airship for a set period of time each year to be used in military integration exercises, along with the 13th airship being built that would be manufactured to military specs and leased by the military.

The military exercises tried everything from strapping five previously retired MV-22 Osspreys along the rigid airship’s upper haul for stress and lifting capacity experiments, to three monster Ch-53E Super Stallions that could lift a capacity of 16 tons each without being supported by an airship, but with their weight being supported by the lift of the airship, they could almost double the amount lifted!

The new airship harbor and manufacturing plant at Miramar is at the north end of the previous military training grounds of Camp Elliot. Canyons at Camp Elliot created a perfect cradle for the partially open top airship hangar.

The weather in San Diego, California created one of the best places for to build without a fully covered hangar. Average year round temperature of 70 F degrees/ 21 C , with a yearly rainfall of only 9.45 inches/ 24cm, most of the rain in the months of Dec/Jan/Feb when all of the construction of the outer hull was already completed.

I clicked on the live link to the camera on the bottom of the helicopter showing the airship coming into view just as millions of schoolchildren and adults all over the world were also watching the live cam, as the frenzy of passenger carrying airships traversing the sky was still as new and fresh as the first Space Shuttle missions once were… (Another government backed transportation and exploration program --commercial interest coming into play now with the first moon base being habited).

... to be continued

=FUTURE>FLIGHT - an airship story - Part 1

Paul Boldt has been writing a what he calls FurtureFi Story and he thought why not share it with the community. He sent me the first page, and I decided to publish it, please read it and leave your comments, do you want more or would you prefere not? Do you want to leave feedback for paul, please send us an Email.
Please be aware that any views expressed in the story are the views and opinions of the author, and we just publish it as an independent source. So here is the first teaser page of his story, enjoy:

=FUTURE>FLIGHT


A FutureFi story by: Paul Boldt


From Air to Airternity


Any references to persons living and or fictional is solely from the mind of Minolta and all identities herein may or may not reflect certain aspects of those living so take that as you will and any and all sarcasm and wit to be displayed only to those who can handle criticism constructively, and certain instances of writings on the
airship list will be copied and pasted as deemed desirable, so if you don't want it quoted don't write it in the first place! Plus any below average marks given for my poor English prose can be directly directed at my early childhood negligence and disinterest at studying the aforementioned subject.


Chapter One: An Early bird wouldn't swirm.


Monday, I was late for work, which was usual after a hard long weekend of clubbing it all around Manhattan. Usually it would have been down to Atlantic City to shoot the dice, bang!, batoboom batabing, but I had just found a new woman who was directing my direction in her direction, if you directly know what I mean. I had actually wanted to get in early to get a jump on the day, as it was to be an interesting next few days, which the interesting part was to start at 3PM, with the lift off of the company charted Airship. (Oh, by the way, the aforementioned newfound interests name is Ceya).

The boys in the top floor at the place I work like to show the world that they are pulling in the money correctly, their global investments and partnerships reaches into the billions, so what's eight and a half million dollars to charter a blimp bag for a week? Entertain cliental, give the office a few days rest, while keeping them working with the full internet connectivity aboard the ship.

The buzz around the office was one of the top managers was afraid to fly cause he didn't want to go down in flames like the Hindenburg, but the bean crunchers in accounting worked with legal and gave the green thumbs up, they even had to give top management a fifteen minute presentation (that took 3 weeks to research and write for another $300,000!! they got some of the information and misinformation on some
obscure internet airship list).

Mid morning was swamped; lunch was a V8, as I was planning to have my meal on board, which was heard to be as good as the New Astoria Megahotel. My head was buried inside my computer screen with two phones one on each ear, one to some coke infused night owls in Shanghai, and the other to my shift change associate in Guam, who was just telling me how jealous she was that I was going to be flying….

I first looked at the clocks on the wall, located the one for NY, holy shitake mushroom batman it was 3:17pm, I looked out the window overlooking the river, and in the background I see the Statue of Liberty, and in the foreground I see the mammoth ship already lifting off! No wonder I could finally get some work done the whole place was empty around me. I vaguely remembered an email note, that said if you were tied up with important client meeting or just had to delay, you could pay an extra $1000 and catch a helicopter ride on the top of the airship within 2 hours of take off, as the ship would still be buzzing around Manhattan, displaying full fuselage advertising for the company (additional money on top of the charter fee).

I typed on my credit account info and billed for the heli-ride, downloaded the ticket info to my watch, and bee lined it (whatever that means) to the roof. Probably lucky that I missed the actual take off as none other than Wiley E. Bill himself was stepping on the elevator 4 floors above where I got on. Rumor was he had figures upon figures down to the toenail on just about everything that could make the firm reach it's trillion dollar goal, proven by the facts; a) he knew my name, as his secretary had just told him, via his download feed, who had just purchased late tickets, and who would be riding on the elevator, the download giving him vast amounts of data to dissect, b) he rattled off on my account I was to be closing on board the airship with the Czech contacts, c) he quoted the friggen dimensions and stats of the whale we'd be landing on in 27 minutes time which are as follows:......

TO BE CONTINUED

Now what? You might ask, well I guess you will have to wait, for the next installment. So my question to all who read the whole piece: Do you want more? Or would you rather have less fiction and more facts on the Blog? Leave a comment or send an Email to airshipworld@gmail.com. We really need your opinions. If you also happen have something like that and would like it published here, please go ahead and send it to us.