Blimp Ride

[LBPete]

I got to go up in the Goodyear Blimp today. A very interesting ride. The cabin holds 6 passengers and the Pilot. It takes a couple of dozen guys to land the thing. They literally grab it and hold it in place. The loading process is a hoot. The blimp is not tethered in any way, just the guys are just holding it and the pilot plays with the engines and controls to try to keep it in position. They alternate the people getting off and the people getting on to keep it balanced. The whole time the dame thing is moving in every direction. Up, down, sideways, pitch and yaw. It was kind of windy when we got back and they had to let it go half way through the load/unload process. They told us the only dangerous part of the flight is getting in and out of the cabin.

No seatbelts in the cabin and the ride is actually very smooth. It takes off like a rocket. The captain points it straight up. It does blow around a little during the flight but not scary or sickening at all. We went out over the ocean in the Redondo Beach, Palos Verde area. Very scenic. Here are some pictures.

The first one is the blimp coming in for a landing before we got on.

- Pete

[LBPete]

Preparing to get on.

[LBPete]

Over the captain's shoulder.

[LBPete]

Coming in for a landing.

[LBPete]

Unloading.

[elvisluvs]

LBPete- Tres cool dude! More shots! Btw- how do us mere mortals catch a ride on that baby? And btw#2- that second to last pic looks like the outtakes from the end of "Top Gun". -mark

[Parky50]

Nice Pics Pete,

Thanks for sharing... what an expierence that must have been !!! :thmbsp:

Way cool !!! :yes:

[LBPete]

LBPete- Tres cool dude! More shots! Btw- how do us mere mortals catch a ride on that baby? And btw#2- that second to last pic looks like the outtakes from the end of "Top Gun". -markUnfortunately mear motrals don't have a lot of opportunity for a blimp ride. There are basically two ways. Goodyear gives seats to charities who auction them off as fundraisers and Goodyear gives rides to business clients. I fell into the second category. The company I work for does a lot of business with Goodyear. To get down to the mortal level, my boss actually got the ride and he gave the seat to me because he had been once before.

Here’s a shot into the captain’s rear view mirror. That’s me directly behind the captain.

- Pete

[LBPete]

Blimp shadow.

[LBPete]

Here's a shot looking Northeast across the LA basin. Downtown LA is just out of frame on the left. There are two snow-capped mountains in the distance. The larger of the two is Mt. Baldy. It stands 11,000 feet or so. The beach below to the left is Redondo Beach and then Torrance Beach and then Palos Verde is where the coastline curves around and cliffs begin.

- Pete

[elvisluvs]

Thanks Pete- you dog :ntwrthy: - soaring with the eagles-mark.

[mg196]

Dude! GET THE HELL AWAY FROM THERE!!!!!

[kcollins4]

A ride in a blimp would be so cool! About ten years ago they closed the blimp base in Houston. Somewhere around here I have pieces of their last blimp autographed by one of the pilots. It looks like a thick piece of inner tube silvere on one side. :smoke:

[Thatch_Ear]

I have seen that thing parked there off the 405 just north of the 605, or in other words right in your neighborhood. I have been up in a hot air balloon and the verigo is incredible when you launch. Of cours you can't guide it, power lines will kill you and landing is an uncontrolled crash and you get dragged around a bit. I think the blimp would be a lot more civilized.
B as in second one made (US NAVY) Limp as in derigable, limp not rigid. B-Limp. Just in case you ever wondered how they got such a stupid name.

[LBPete]

Thatch,
Goodyear's LA airship operations is located just off the intersection of the 405 and 110 freeways. Once in the cabin, the blimp is very civilized. There aren't even seatbelts! It did do some noticeable side slip and on a couple of occasions the pilot screwed with us a little by putting it into odd attitudes but overall very smooth and civilized. Interesting but not at all a thrill ride. It's getting on and off when the damn thing is blowing around that will give you the willies. The B-limp thing it's the first I've heard that explanation. As far as I'm concerned, limp is seldom a good thing (but at least there is medication for it now!)

- Pete.

[Thatch_Ear]

Blimp is just one great example of how words become part of the language in the US. A couple more are Jumbo, the name of Barnum's first elephant and Jeep which was derived from the letters GP, for half ton vehicle General Purpose.

I don't know but would guess a lot of the "Blimps" around are actually rigid, no meds needed.

[WhiteSE]

Did it do any crazy 8's and barrell rolls? :-)

[OMI]

Nice Pics!!!!!!!! Looks like a camera was standard atire for everyone getting a ride... Looked like everyone had a camera stuck to their face:) Once in a lifetime event..... :thmbsp:

[rca2000]

I dont know, but seeing the inside pictures keeps reminding me of "Black Sunday".

[LBPete]

Nice Pics!!!!!!!! Looks like a camera was standard atire for everyone getting a ride... Looked like everyone had a camera stuck to their face:) Once in a lifetime event..... :thmbsp:

Yeah, the picture with all the cameras is pretty goofy looking. I couldn't see the detail in the mirror looking through the view finder.

- Pete

[Toasted Almond]

A blimp ride is way fucking cool Pete. Great stuff.

[Reel 2 Reel]

(Disclaimer...I didn't write this...but it is told in the first person.....)


Last week while travelling I stopped at a Zany Brainy store and saw that they had a blimp for sale. It's called Airship Earth, and it's a great
big balloon with a map of the Earth on it, and two propellors hanging from the bottom. You blow up the balloon with helium, put batteries in
it, and you have a radio controlled indoor blimp.

I'd seen these things for sale in Sharper Image catalogs for $60-$75. At Zany Brainy it was on clearance for $15. What a deal!

Last night my wife was playing tennis and it was just my daughter and I at home. I bought a small helium tank from a party store, and last
night we put the blimp together.

Let me tell you, it's quite a blimp. It's huge. The balloon has like a 3 ft diameter.

We blew it up with the tank, attached the gondola with the propellors, and put in batteries.

Then we balanced the blimp for neutral bouyancy with this putty that came with it, so it hangs in the air by itself neither rising nor falling.

It was easy and fun, and then I blew up another balloon and made Mickey Mouse helium voices for my daughter.

My three year old girl loved it. We flew the blimp all over the house, terrorized the dog, attacked the fish tank, and the controls were so
easy my daughter could fly.

Let's face it, blimps are fun.

Alas, the fun had to end and my daughter had to go to sleep. I left the blimp floating in my office downstairs, my wife came home, and we
went to bed, and slept the sleep of the righteous.

At this point it is important to know that my house has central heating. I have it configured to blow hot air out on the ground floor and take
it in at the second floor to take advantage of the fact that heat rises.

The blimp which was up until this moment a fun toy, here embarked on a career of evil. Using the artificial convection of my central heating,
the blimp stealthily departed my office. It moved silently through the living room and drifted to the staircase. Gliding wraithlike over the staircase
it then entered the bedroom where my wife and I lay sleeping peacefully.

Running silently, and gliding six feet or so above the ground on invisible and tiny air currents it approached the bed.

In spite of it's noiseless passage, or perhaps because of it, I awoke. That doesn't really say it properly. Let me try again.

I awoke, the way you awake at 2:00 AM when your sleeping senses suddenly tell you without reason that the forces of evil are converging
on you.

That still doesn't do it. Let me try one more time.

I awoke the way you awake when you suddenly know that there is a large levitating sinister presence hovering towards you with menacing
intent through the maligant darkness.

Now sometimes I do wake up in the middle of the night thinking that there are large sinister and menacing things floating out of the
darkness to do me and mine evil. Usually I open my eyes, look and listen carefully, decide it was a false alarm, and go back to sleep.

So, the fact that I awoke in such a manner was not all that unusual.

On this occasion I awoke to the sense that there was a large menacing presence approaching me silently out of the gloom, so I opened my
eyes, and there it was! A LARGE, SILENT, MENACING PRESENCE WAS APPROACHING ME OUT OF THE GLOOM..... AND IT COULD FLY!!!

Somewhere in the control room of my mind a fat little dwarf in a security outfit was paging through a Penthouse while smoking a cigar with
his feet up on the table, watching the security monitors of my brain with his peripheral vision. Suddenly he saw the LARGE SILENT SINSITER
MENACING FLOATING PRESENCE coming at me, and he pulled every panic switch and hit every alarm that my body has. A full decade's
allotment of adrenaline was dumped into my bloodstream all at once. My metabolism went from "restful sleep" mode to "HOLY ****!!!! FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE OR DIE!!!!" mode in a nanosecond. My heart went from twenty something beats per minute to about 240 even faster.

I always knew this was going to happen. I always knew that skepticism and science were mere psychological decorations and vanities.
Deep in our alligator brains we all know that the world is just chock full of evil and monsters and sinister forces aligned against us, and it is
only a matter of time until they show up. Evolution knows this, too. It knows what to do when the silent terror comes at you from out of
the dark.

When 50 million years worth of evolutionary survival instinct hits you all at once flat in the gut at 200 mph it is not a pleasant sensation.

Without volition I screamed my battle cry (which is indistinguishable to the sound a little girl makes when you drop a spider down her dress
(not that I'd know what that sounds like,) and lept out of bed in my underwear.

I struck the approaching menace with all my strength and almost fell over at the total lack of resistance that a helium balloon offers when
you punch the living **** out of it with all the stength that sudden middle of the night terror produces.

It's trajectory took it straight into the ceiling fan which whipped it about the room at terrifying velocity.

Seeking a weapon, I ripped the alarm clock out of its plug and hurled it at the now High Velocity Menacing presence (breaking the clock and
putting a nice hole in the wall.)

Somehow at this moment I suddenly realized that I was fighting the blimp, and not a monster. It might have been funny if I didn't truly and
actually feel like I was having a legitimate heart-attack.

On quivering legs I went to the bathroom and literally gagged into the toilet while shaking uncontrollably with the shock of the reaction I'd
had.

Unbelievably, both my wife and daughter had completely slept through the incident. When I decided that I wasn't having a heart attack
after all, I went back into the bedroom and found the blimp which had somehow survived the incident.

I took it to the walk in closet and released it inside where it floated around with the air currents released from the vents in there. I closed
the door, thus sealing it in, and went back to bed. About 500 years later I fell asleep.

***

At about 7 am my wife awoke. She had been playing tennis and wasn't aware that we had assembled the blimp the previous evening, and
that it was now floating around the the walk-in closet that she approached.

The dynamic between the existing air currents of the closet and the suction caused by opening the door was just enough to give the blimp
the appearance of an Evil Sinister Menace flying straight towards her.

This time the blimp did not survive the encounter, nor almost, did I, as I had to explain to my very angry spouse what motivated me to hide
an evil lurking presence in the closet for her to find at 7 am.

I can order replacement balloons on the internet but I don't think I will.

Some blimps are better off dead.

[hpsenicka]

You tell a great story!!
:lmao:

Where are the America's Funniest Video's cameras when you need them?? :naughty:

[krimney]

It gave me my chuckle for the day.

First thing in the morning I bet you put Nena, 99 red Balloons on those mach 1 :lmao:

[LBPete]

Gary,
Great story, well told. I laughed out loud. You could not repeat that sequence of events if you tried. At least now you know your heart can stand some serious stress without locking up.

- Pete

[Reel 2 Reel]

Just for the record....I didnt write it ...it was a story I found on the net somewhere....


Dont want to be accused of plagerism(sp)..... :no: