Blimp Week
The conquest of the air, winglessly. Zeppelins! Dirigibles! Blimps! Exploring all things floaty.
Near Ava, Ohio - 1926
(1240 Words. April 23, 2008, 06:56 PM, Comments: 1) MORE >>>
Several years ago, casting about for a subject of interest to me on which I felt I might be able to contribute in some small way, I wrote a blog post concerning the wreck of the United States Naval airship Shenandoah. Happy with the result, I had no idea that the piece would become a destination for readers from…
The Weight and Lightness of History
(248 Words. April 05, 2008, 09:09 PM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
Ages ago I put together a post on the loss of the USS Shenandoah, a rigid airship of the US Navy, over Ohio in the 1920s. I did so simply because dirigibles fascinate me and the end of the Shenandoah’s career is a whale of a yarn. After I crafted that original post, the wisdom of the internets began…
Akron acorn
(12 Words. February 20, 2006, 05:48 PM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
According to the New York Times, I need to move to Akron….
Blimp Week For a Day!
(182 Words. January 05, 2006, 07:52 AM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
Newer readers may have noted an occasional tendency on my part to blog upon topics associated with lighter than air aviation. The faithful correspondent and expert medievalist behind Hollyism dropped some blimpy science upon me this morning: “I saw http://www.cantonrep.com/index.php?ID=261606&r=0&Category=9”>this article on the hybrid blimp in development and immediately thought of you (wait, that didn’t sound right…)” I, for one,…
Strat-ISPhere
(49 Words. July 16, 2005, 05:24 PM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
This MonkeyFilter post notes that the San Bernardino company Sanswire has successfully floated their first Stratellite, intended as an LTA satellite alternative, specifically to provide wireless internet services. The ship has an interesting pattern of ridges implying a dirigible-like inner structure, as well as a unique double-wide hull….
Another Blimp Bomp
(60 Words. June 17, 2005, 05:06 PM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
A Florida-based Goodyear blimp crashed late Thursday, during a storm. I heard about this but was remiss in blogging it, as my referral logs note. This is the second such incident I have blogged, although the other incident involved the LA-area blimp. I regret not snagging that pic, so, uh, sorry, CNN. It’s linked, if you care….
Sonora Aero Club
(36 Words. June 15, 2005, 06:29 AM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
MeFi thread on the Sonora Aero Club Mysteries. Zeppelins + crazy nonsense technology + German immigrant engineers wandering around the Sonora Desert. Can’t wait to read it! My first Blimp Week post in many moons!…
to pooped to post
(75 Words. April 15, 2005, 08:32 PM, Comments: 1) MORE >>>
I firmly believe I had some blathering in me today. But at the current time my listless sleepiness has limited my actions to staring blankly at the contents of the directory entitled “Games” found on my hard drive. If one of my games could be played by my lying, motionless, and whispering commands such as ‘duck’ or ‘move right,’…
Vickers LTA, Ltd.
(42 Words. January 25, 2005, 04:51 PM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
This ca. 1921Vickers Airship Catalogue provides the apparent source material for the lovely, previously linked cardmodel by Ralph Currel. [via, who else, The Cartoonist, who unaccountably did not make the cut for the ‘05 Bloggies, despite his remarkable linking skills.]…
CargoLifter to Beach
(49 Words. December 22, 2004, 06:27 AM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
Tim Dowling visits Tropical Islands - a new indoor resort in Germany [via BB]: The abandonded CargoLifter hangar is now a giant indoor beach. After all, if you can’t move the people to the beach… [previous appearances by CargoLifter here, here, here, and here.]…
A family picture
(143 Words. October 07, 2004, 07:01 AM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
A day or two ago, I received this note in the comments to The Wreck of The Shenandoah. Thank you very much for this very informative site. I have a picture taken of the Wreck of the Shenandoah. The back of the picture says Ava, Ohio, the wreck of The Shenandoah. Sept. 3rd 1925. I believe the photo was…
How to steal a Zeppelin
(1166 Words. October 02, 2004, 07:28 AM, Comments: 4) MORE >>>
This is the final installment of Blimp Week II, folks, and I’m playing a couple of requests. Soon-to-be parasite on society Paul Frankenstein (he’s famous, you know) IMs, suggesting the title above. Ergo: 1. Go to Google Image search. 2. Enter the word “zeppelin” and hit the submit button. 3. Steal as many zeppelins as you’d like. Thank you!…
How to look at a Zeppelin
(784 Words. October 01, 2004, 07:24 AM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
Man, am I beat. Thus, some brevity, in theory. Let’s set things up for a ruminantive journey by peeking in on FROM BABYKILLER TO ART DECO ICON: images of the airship, authored in 2002 and concluding with a paragraph that looks ahead to the coming hypercapitalist celebration of the airship. Having digested that (and franked the letters as apprpriate)…
How to build a Zeppelin
(1052 Words. September 30, 2004, 07:36 AM, Comments: 8) MORE >>>
Once again, short on time, enough so that I regret to report that his entry shall undoubtedly suffer. In the machine migration I appear to have left some nifty Word macros behind that allowed me to do a certain amount of basic HTML in that app without having to resort to cleaning up the beast’s unruly, overfeatured HTML. So…
To the World's Fair by Zeppelin
(466 Words. September 29, 2004, 07:23 AM, Comments: 1) MORE >>>
My original game plan called for “How to build a Zeppelin” to run today, the natural followup to “How to fly a Zeppelin.” Alas, a plethora of resources has led to a dearth of editing and composition time, and I therefore deem it meet to instead feature a first-person account of a journey at the pace of the clouds. From…
How to fly a Zeppelin
(1368 Words. September 28, 2004, 07:14 AM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
(…onscreen, anyway.) Blimp Week II continues with this surefire crowd pleaser! What wild-eyed wannabe airshipman hasn’t dreamt of moseying through the air in a lighter-than-air leviathan? While a bit of searching did not yield a super-detailed, insanely accurate simulation of any specific lighter-than-air craft, there are two reasonably detailed flight sims that offer a good start. One, Dawn of Aces,…
Blimp Week: Now in 3-D!
(257 Words. September 27, 2004, 07:05 AM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
For the first scheduled entry in Blimp Week II here at mike.whybark.com, a simple, link-oriented post. Sure, you watched the Hindenberg III slide by last week in the theater, and it was a peculiar mix of grandiose and intimate. But something was missing, nonetheless. What could it be? Well, in part at least, the answer is nothing less than binocular…
Easy Targets
(232 Words. September 26, 2004, 11:52 AM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
Army Floats a Trial Balloon (washingtonpost.com): Brandreth said American Blimp is promoting the use of airships as airborne surveillance. Many people wrongly assume blimps are vulnerable to bullets fired by, say, drug runners or terrorists. “Almost everything people think they know about blimps is wrong,” said Brandreth, citing the misconception that a bullet can bring down a blimp. The envelope…
Sky Captain and the Blimp Week of Tomorrow
(1679 Words. September 25, 2004, 10:57 PM, Comments: 2) MORE >>>
Viv and I caught Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (link advisory: flash, loud SFX) this afternoon. Following the film we ate at the lovely Le Pichet, a tiny French bistro on First, next to the Virginia Inn. The meal was quite pricey but the food was very good. Sky Captain, as you must know by now, is interesting…
Floaters
(10 Words. September 07, 2004, 08:32 AM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
The UK’s Airship Heritage Trust. [via things (welcome back!)]…
On a bright September morning
(162 Words. September 04, 2004, 10:39 PM, Comments: 1) MORE >>>
I’m a day late with this. A few days ago, I received a note in my email. It read, in large part, “In case you haven’t located a recorded version of the ‘Wreck of the Shenandoah’ I have attached a copy.” Attached to the email was an mp3. The very first year I was blogging, I wrote a long piece about…
Sanyo Lightship
(87 Words. July 28, 2004, 06:51 PM, Comments: 1) MORE >>>
The Sanyo Lightship has been buzzing my neighborhood since the weekend, and unaccountably, there’s been no Googleable local press. Interestingly, Sanyo itself has not been updating their news and info very much. Foolishly, I did not immediately attempt to talk my way on board the day I saw it in flight. Even more foolishly, there have been several times I’ve…
Curtiss' Airship
(127 Words. July 02, 2004, 06:53 AM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
Building Airships and Flying-Machines, by G. H . Curtiss. [at Bizarre Stuff.] In building an airship, it is well to first determine the weight of the frame, propellers, engine, controlling mechanism and operator; then build, or purchase, the gas bag, of proper dimensions and sufficient capacity to lift the desired weight, together with a reasonable amount of ballast, which in…
Blimp Week, part 742
(65 Words. July 01, 2004, 05:12 PM, Comments: 2) MORE >>>
Zepps, at the recently cited Dannysoar site, contains plans for not one but TWO stick-and-tissue free-flight model zeps. Ah, lovely. Dannysoar’s stuff is absolutely top-notch; it’s even somehow appropriate that the site employs aggregational navigation. UPDATE: Oh my God. Le Gyroptère, a mono-wing helicopter aparently modeled upon the flight technique employed by maple seeds. Amazingly, copious documentation of this incredible…
A day late, but lighter than air
(87 Words. June 29, 2004, 08:22 PM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
Telegraph | News | Mighty Zeppelin returns to skies over London (Telegraph of 06-21) A sight that once brought fear to the hearts of our grandparents and great-grandparents, a mighty Zeppelin, followed the route of the Thames into central London yesterday. Zeppelin NT has a customer in the land of the rising sun. The vessel is scheduled to make a…
The one true...
(227 Words. March 04, 2004, 04:30 AM, Comments: 1) MORE >>>
thingsmagazine.net’s jpl mentioned that his fambly posesses a fragment of the zeppelin L32, shot down over England the 23rd of September 1916. A police account may be found here, and entertainingly, an illustration of Lt. Sowrey’s victory over the L32 may be found within the deep reservoir of Rosebud’s WWI and Early Aviation Image Archive, the link that prompted my…
Card modeling, meet Blimp Week
(75 Words. January 26, 2004, 02:18 PM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
Vickers Transoceanic Airship from Currell’s Card Models. The models are free as downloads. The Airship page also links to some interesting historical docs on the background of the model. On the free models list page he also offers an H. G. Wells Land Ironclad, the historical R-101 airship (also a mooring mast, and (be still my beating heart) the rocket…
Blimpband: ADSL?
(27 Words. January 20, 2004, 10:57 PM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
The Register: Airships to deliver broadband to rural areas, anti-blog news and humor site reports. ADSL: Airship Digital Subscriber Line. No word yet on snappy uniforms….
BLIMP WEEK update: BLIMP CRASH!
(219 Words. December 05, 2003, 10:15 AM, Comments: 1) MORE >>>
Goodyear blimp drifts into truck; cameraman injured (SF Chronicle) The “Spirit of America” got away yesterday. Here’s a pic. Somedays, I miss borrowing wire photos and running them here. But I’m trying to respect creators’ rights so, uh, no pic here, darn it. While I’m referring to Blimp Week, I should link to the category page. Several of the entries…
Eyewitness
(184 Words. May 04, 2003, 07:16 AM, Comments: 1) MORE >>>
May I call your attention to the most recently posted comment under my Blimp Week chestnut, The Wreck of the Shenandoah: a genuine eye-witness account from one Robert McCoy. Man, this internet thing just might work out. Feedback like this is the obverse of this site’s magical ability to attract those it discusses into discourse. See also the recent comment…
You've got Blimp!
(86 Words. March 31, 2003, 03:12 PM, Comments: 1) MORE >>>
lta-mail is an informational page on Hewlett-Packard’s website exploring a new intraoffice mail delivery system initaitive intended to demonstrate the many efficient ways that Compaq and HP are merging corporate cultures and adding value for shareholders the world over. [A big TYVM to hot tipper Eric! Your prize is already lost in the mail!] (And in contrast to the snarky…
Blimp Week Bonus Beats
(81 Words. February 24, 2003, 07:40 AM, Comments: 1) MORE >>>
The horror of blimps: “Using the artificial convection of my central heating, the blimp stealthily departed my office. It moved silently through the living and drifted to the staircase. Gliding wraithlike over the staircase it then entered the bedroom where my wife and I lay sleeping peacefully.” I laughed, and laughed, and then I laughed some more. Then Viv came…
blimp week followup part MCMLXXI
(101 Words. August 21, 2002, 04:15 PM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
NYT: Big Blimp that apparently couldn’t is a story I noted in the Times just before we went to California in late May. I stubbed an entry on it here and forgot all about it. The article details the mad vision, and apparent business failure, of Cargolifter AG and the company’s founder, Carl von Gablenz. Boeing’s investment of emergency funding…
Ghost Blimp
(68 Words. August 18, 2002, 11:37 AM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
60 years later, pilots’ fate still a mystery is the headline for this wire service aricle I saw in the sunday Seattle Times-PI joint edition. To summarize, during WWII, a Navy coast patrol blimp returned from a short mission sans crew; the gondola of this blimp later became the gondola for one of the flagship Goodyear blimps. Goodyear provides some…
UFOs: Blimps!
(734 Words. August 08, 2002, 10:40 AM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
Space.com’s Investigation Casts Light on the Mysterious Flying Black Triangle. Some Nevada-based nutball-science shop, the National Institute for Discovery Science, has been getting plenty of link with a recently released study concerning the contemporary “black triangle” variant of yoofo. They theorize that said inky deltas are super-secret military LTA craft: that’s BLIMP to me and thee, English. (Is it just…
MeFi, /. Play Catch-Up
(62 Words. August 06, 2002, 04:47 PM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
Metafilter poster GriffX cites the excellent article “Death of a Dirigible”, which alert and longtime readers of mike.whybark.com will recall cited as a part of my research links in my own account of the wreck of the airship Shenandoah published during the original Blimp Week, these many weeks ago. Just kidding about the catch-up, you smart mobs out there!…
BLIMP WEEK UPDATE PART UMPTEEN
(184 Words. July 09, 2002, 10:16 AM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
Now on ebay: Own your own blimp! Someone else’s loss is your gain. We found this SEA DOO blimp hung up on one of our fences on our ranch (in the middle of nowhere). It was fully inflated with helium and flying a couple of hundred feet in the air, so there are no holes in it. It has at…
Yatta followup (for pf, I think)
(123 Words. June 23, 2002, 11:19 PM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
This Yatta! site, via a link from this “fanimutation” via yesterday’s guest star explains why there are silly Japanese men singing while wearing fig leaves. Lyrics here. And since I first heard of Yatta! via Paul Frankenstein not very long ago, I should mention that he noted, before I did, that my ID of Moffet Field from I-5 was a…
Moffet Field from I-5 (Blimp Week followup part IV)
(104 Words. June 02, 2002, 10:48 AM, Comments: 3) MORE >>>
From the mid-twenties until the beginning of World War II, the Navy had at its disposal two fully-equipped LTA bases from which the great dirigibles could operate. These were, and remain, Lakehurst in New Jersey, the first of these bases, and the lesser-known Moffet Field in Sunnyvale California, just south of Anaheim (just south of the newspaper offices of…
Blimp Week Followup Pt. III
(733 Words. May 31, 2002, 10:54 AM, Comments: 3) MORE >>>
In my longish story on the Wreck of the Shenandoah, I mentioned the release, and subsequent about face by the publisher, of a song by the same name within a week of the disaster. At the time, I was unable to find words or music to the song, although I suspected that a child’s school paper on the event was…
Piranha Airships (Blimp Week Followup Part II)
(233 Words. May 26, 2002, 07:13 AM, Comments: 3) MORE >>>
Piranha Airships is a Puget Sound area manufacturer of fully-operational toy airships. These airships are about two and a half feet long, and have a single band-driven prop slung elegantly under the nose of the gasbag. I’m a happy owner, and encourage you too to purchase a vessel. They are so simply engineered, it makes me smile just to think…
Blimp Week followup Pt. I
(98 Words. May 18, 2002, 12:13 PM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
In the May 18 edition of the Seattle P-I, a story by Mike Barber picks up on the initial Blimp Week story of Boeing’s investment in CargoLifter: Dirigibles get the call: Uncle Sam wants you Dirigibles — massive flying machines that went the way of the mammoth a half-century ago — are being resurrected as high-tech weapons in the war…
... and another wreck, much less interesting
(479 Words. May 08, 2002, 07:24 AM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
In January of 2001, a blimp owned and operated by Las Vegas-based Airship USA slipped the surly bonds of Earth and man and wandered the skies of the greater San Francisco metropolitan area before finally crashing into a Bay Area restaurant. Remarkably, no one was hurt in the incident, and even more remarkably, no one interpreted the event as an…
STONES on BLIMP WEEK Coverage
(261 Words. May 08, 2002, 05:03 AM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
Just so my gentle readers don’t think I was yanking anybody’s chain, here’s a wire story with photos about Tuesday’s Rolling Stones - Blimp Week cross promo: Yahoo wire photos which will undoubedly change, and here’s the story proper: “Rolling Stones Announce Yet Another”. I thought about nicking a shot or two, but I’ll wait till the Stones site has…
The Wreck of the Shenandoah
(1781 Words. May 07, 2002, 11:23 AM, Comments: 30) MORE >>>
The screaming of the aluminum girders suddenly ceased. The deep spanging thrum of cables popping slowed. Charles E. Rosendahl clung to a girder and watched the rear half of the great dirigible dwindle below him into the, uh, dark and stormy night. Rosendahl was the navigator on the USS Shenandoah, the first of the US Navy’s four great dirigibles. Reverse-engineered…
the BLIMP WEEK theme song
(233 Words. May 06, 2002, 12:26 PM, Comments: 2) MORE >>>
Ken Goldstein, of the Illuminated Donkey has kindly agreed (actully, he’s done no such thing, and will come away from this performance believing it was all some sort of peculiar dream brought on by one too many egg creams) to perform the BLIMP WEEK theme song for us here in the vast and dusty mike.whybark.com Dirigible Theater, largely abandonded since…
*EXCLUSIVE* STONES ANNOUNCE BLIMP WEEK GRAND FINALE
(208 Words. May 06, 2002, 12:19 PM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
According to Reuters, “Rolling Stones to Blimp New York”. LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Rolling Stones plan to drop in from the sky next week to announce their first tour in three years, according to a U.S. government official. The veteran rockers will commandeer an airship and cruise into Van Cortlandt Park, New York City’s third largest park, in the…
Seattle Pacific Zeppelin Airlines
(117 Words. May 06, 2002, 07:57 AM, Comments: 7) MORE >>>
Shocking news! Recent discoveries indicate that in an alternate timeline, the company which produced the poster above makes money hand over fist over jowl! For a printable PDF, click the image. UPDATE: I’ve realized that I misused the word “Zeppelin” in the poster. Since I depicted the Cargolifter dirigible and not the currently-flying Zeppelin NT I suppose I should…
Getchya BLIMP RIDES heah!
(729 Words. May 05, 2002, 07:35 AM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
from Zeppelin’s announcements page, dated April 19, 2002: Want to ride in a Zeppelin? Me too! The next season begins 19 April. Book flights via Deutsche Zeppelin Reederei: http://www.zeppelinflug.de/pages/D/buchung.htm. Auf deutsch. € 335,00 - € 370,00 per person. Tell them I sent you. They’ll look at you strangely :) Deutsche Zeppelin-Reederei GmbH Allmansweilerstrasse 132 D-88046 Friedrichshafen Deutschland Telefon: +49 (0)…
Sky Ships, a review
(1160 Words. May 04, 2002, 07:15 AM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
Sky Ships, a history of the airship in the United States Navy, published 1990 by Pacifica Press. By William Althoff, 304 pp. Out of print. Buy it from the NAS Lakehurst gift shop online or used from Amazon. Here’s an excerpt concerning the consruction of the Shenandoah at NAS Lakehurst, New Jersey. Finally, it should be noted that Lakehurst is…
BLIMP WEEK, part three
(186 Words. May 03, 2002, 06:53 PM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
OK, I’m making it official. I declare this to be BLIMP WEEK! Seven consecutive entries here at mike.whybark.com will be oriented toward the wonders of lighter-than-air aviation! Tell your friends! Send your mom! Now, technically, I hope to make most of the entries about dirigibles, but Blimp Week is more fun to say. And it’s so utterly opposed to that…
More LTA
(179 Words. May 03, 2002, 01:15 PM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
Later the same day I dribbled the two scanty grafs on airships headlined “The goodrich blimp?”, this crossed the wires: “Cargolifter buoyed by Boeing partnership” - Reuters Cargolifter, which aims to develop zeppelin-like airships to transport heavy plant and construction loads, said it had signed a letter of intent with plane maker Boeing (NYSE:BA - news) to examine potential business…
The goodrich blimp?
(112 Words. May 02, 2002, 07:03 AM, Comments: 2) MORE >>>
Nope, the Goodyear paper bag. While we’re on the subject, check out Goodyear’s killer site on the company’s long association with lighter-than-air aviation: www.goodyearblimp.com. Includes this page featuring old film footage of lots of interesting things, including a five-ship fleet parade, the christening of the Akron, and other footage that will confirm your pre-extant belief systems regarding lighter-than-air aviation. I…
The conquest of the air, winglessly. Zeppelins! Dirigibles! Blimps! Exploring all things floaty.
Near Ava, Ohio - 1926
(1240 Words. April 23, 2008, 06:56 PM, Comments: 1) MORE >>>
Several years ago, casting about for a subject of interest to me on which I felt I might be able to contribute in some small way, I wrote a blog post concerning the wreck of the United States Naval airship Shenandoah. Happy with the result, I had no idea that the piece would become a destination for readers from…
The Weight and Lightness of History
(248 Words. April 05, 2008, 09:09 PM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
Ages ago I put together a post on the loss of the USS Shenandoah, a rigid airship of the US Navy, over Ohio in the 1920s. I did so simply because dirigibles fascinate me and the end of the Shenandoah’s career is a whale of a yarn. After I crafted that original post, the wisdom of the internets began…
Akron acorn
(12 Words. February 20, 2006, 05:48 PM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
According to the New York Times, I need to move to Akron….
Blimp Week For a Day!
(182 Words. January 05, 2006, 07:52 AM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
Newer readers may have noted an occasional tendency on my part to blog upon topics associated with lighter than air aviation. The faithful correspondent and expert medievalist behind Hollyism dropped some blimpy science upon me this morning: “I saw http://www.cantonrep.com/index.php?ID=261606&r=0&Category=9”>this article on the hybrid blimp in development and immediately thought of you (wait, that didn’t sound right…)” I, for one,…
Strat-ISPhere
(49 Words. July 16, 2005, 05:24 PM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
This MonkeyFilter post notes that the San Bernardino company Sanswire has successfully floated their first Stratellite, intended as an LTA satellite alternative, specifically to provide wireless internet services. The ship has an interesting pattern of ridges implying a dirigible-like inner structure, as well as a unique double-wide hull….
Another Blimp Bomp
(60 Words. June 17, 2005, 05:06 PM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
A Florida-based Goodyear blimp crashed late Thursday, during a storm. I heard about this but was remiss in blogging it, as my referral logs note. This is the second such incident I have blogged, although the other incident involved the LA-area blimp. I regret not snagging that pic, so, uh, sorry, CNN. It’s linked, if you care….
Sonora Aero Club
(36 Words. June 15, 2005, 06:29 AM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
MeFi thread on the Sonora Aero Club Mysteries. Zeppelins + crazy nonsense technology + German immigrant engineers wandering around the Sonora Desert. Can’t wait to read it! My first Blimp Week post in many moons!…
to pooped to post
(75 Words. April 15, 2005, 08:32 PM, Comments: 1) MORE >>>
I firmly believe I had some blathering in me today. But at the current time my listless sleepiness has limited my actions to staring blankly at the contents of the directory entitled “Games” found on my hard drive. If one of my games could be played by my lying, motionless, and whispering commands such as ‘duck’ or ‘move right,’…
Vickers LTA, Ltd.
(42 Words. January 25, 2005, 04:51 PM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
This ca. 1921Vickers Airship Catalogue provides the apparent source material for the lovely, previously linked cardmodel by Ralph Currel. [via, who else, The Cartoonist, who unaccountably did not make the cut for the ‘05 Bloggies, despite his remarkable linking skills.]…
CargoLifter to Beach
(49 Words. December 22, 2004, 06:27 AM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
Tim Dowling visits Tropical Islands - a new indoor resort in Germany [via BB]: The abandonded CargoLifter hangar is now a giant indoor beach. After all, if you can’t move the people to the beach… [previous appearances by CargoLifter here, here, here, and here.]…
A family picture
(143 Words. October 07, 2004, 07:01 AM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
A day or two ago, I received this note in the comments to The Wreck of The Shenandoah. Thank you very much for this very informative site. I have a picture taken of the Wreck of the Shenandoah. The back of the picture says Ava, Ohio, the wreck of The Shenandoah. Sept. 3rd 1925. I believe the photo was…
How to steal a Zeppelin
(1166 Words. October 02, 2004, 07:28 AM, Comments: 4) MORE >>>
This is the final installment of Blimp Week II, folks, and I’m playing a couple of requests. Soon-to-be parasite on society Paul Frankenstein (he’s famous, you know) IMs, suggesting the title above. Ergo: 1. Go to Google Image search. 2. Enter the word “zeppelin” and hit the submit button. 3. Steal as many zeppelins as you’d like. Thank you!…
How to look at a Zeppelin
(784 Words. October 01, 2004, 07:24 AM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
Man, am I beat. Thus, some brevity, in theory. Let’s set things up for a ruminantive journey by peeking in on FROM BABYKILLER TO ART DECO ICON: images of the airship, authored in 2002 and concluding with a paragraph that looks ahead to the coming hypercapitalist celebration of the airship. Having digested that (and franked the letters as apprpriate)…
How to build a Zeppelin
(1052 Words. September 30, 2004, 07:36 AM, Comments: 8) MORE >>>
Once again, short on time, enough so that I regret to report that his entry shall undoubtedly suffer. In the machine migration I appear to have left some nifty Word macros behind that allowed me to do a certain amount of basic HTML in that app without having to resort to cleaning up the beast’s unruly, overfeatured HTML. So…
To the World's Fair by Zeppelin
(466 Words. September 29, 2004, 07:23 AM, Comments: 1) MORE >>>
My original game plan called for “How to build a Zeppelin” to run today, the natural followup to “How to fly a Zeppelin.” Alas, a plethora of resources has led to a dearth of editing and composition time, and I therefore deem it meet to instead feature a first-person account of a journey at the pace of the clouds. From…
How to fly a Zeppelin
(1368 Words. September 28, 2004, 07:14 AM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
(…onscreen, anyway.) Blimp Week II continues with this surefire crowd pleaser! What wild-eyed wannabe airshipman hasn’t dreamt of moseying through the air in a lighter-than-air leviathan? While a bit of searching did not yield a super-detailed, insanely accurate simulation of any specific lighter-than-air craft, there are two reasonably detailed flight sims that offer a good start. One, Dawn of Aces,…
Blimp Week: Now in 3-D!
(257 Words. September 27, 2004, 07:05 AM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
For the first scheduled entry in Blimp Week II here at mike.whybark.com, a simple, link-oriented post. Sure, you watched the Hindenberg III slide by last week in the theater, and it was a peculiar mix of grandiose and intimate. But something was missing, nonetheless. What could it be? Well, in part at least, the answer is nothing less than binocular…
Easy Targets
(232 Words. September 26, 2004, 11:52 AM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
Army Floats a Trial Balloon (washingtonpost.com): Brandreth said American Blimp is promoting the use of airships as airborne surveillance. Many people wrongly assume blimps are vulnerable to bullets fired by, say, drug runners or terrorists. “Almost everything people think they know about blimps is wrong,” said Brandreth, citing the misconception that a bullet can bring down a blimp. The envelope…
Sky Captain and the Blimp Week of Tomorrow
(1679 Words. September 25, 2004, 10:57 PM, Comments: 2) MORE >>>
Viv and I caught Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (link advisory: flash, loud SFX) this afternoon. Following the film we ate at the lovely Le Pichet, a tiny French bistro on First, next to the Virginia Inn. The meal was quite pricey but the food was very good. Sky Captain, as you must know by now, is interesting…
Floaters
(10 Words. September 07, 2004, 08:32 AM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
The UK’s Airship Heritage Trust. [via things (welcome back!)]…
On a bright September morning
(162 Words. September 04, 2004, 10:39 PM, Comments: 1) MORE >>>
I’m a day late with this. A few days ago, I received a note in my email. It read, in large part, “In case you haven’t located a recorded version of the ‘Wreck of the Shenandoah’ I have attached a copy.” Attached to the email was an mp3. The very first year I was blogging, I wrote a long piece about…
Sanyo Lightship
(87 Words. July 28, 2004, 06:51 PM, Comments: 1) MORE >>>
The Sanyo Lightship has been buzzing my neighborhood since the weekend, and unaccountably, there’s been no Googleable local press. Interestingly, Sanyo itself has not been updating their news and info very much. Foolishly, I did not immediately attempt to talk my way on board the day I saw it in flight. Even more foolishly, there have been several times I’ve…
Curtiss' Airship
(127 Words. July 02, 2004, 06:53 AM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
Building Airships and Flying-Machines, by G. H . Curtiss. [at Bizarre Stuff.] In building an airship, it is well to first determine the weight of the frame, propellers, engine, controlling mechanism and operator; then build, or purchase, the gas bag, of proper dimensions and sufficient capacity to lift the desired weight, together with a reasonable amount of ballast, which in…
Blimp Week, part 742
(65 Words. July 01, 2004, 05:12 PM, Comments: 2) MORE >>>
Zepps, at the recently cited Dannysoar site, contains plans for not one but TWO stick-and-tissue free-flight model zeps. Ah, lovely. Dannysoar’s stuff is absolutely top-notch; it’s even somehow appropriate that the site employs aggregational navigation. UPDATE: Oh my God. Le Gyroptère, a mono-wing helicopter aparently modeled upon the flight technique employed by maple seeds. Amazingly, copious documentation of this incredible…
A day late, but lighter than air
(87 Words. June 29, 2004, 08:22 PM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
Telegraph | News | Mighty Zeppelin returns to skies over London (Telegraph of 06-21) A sight that once brought fear to the hearts of our grandparents and great-grandparents, a mighty Zeppelin, followed the route of the Thames into central London yesterday. Zeppelin NT has a customer in the land of the rising sun. The vessel is scheduled to make a…
The one true...
(227 Words. March 04, 2004, 04:30 AM, Comments: 1) MORE >>>
thingsmagazine.net’s jpl mentioned that his fambly posesses a fragment of the zeppelin L32, shot down over England the 23rd of September 1916. A police account may be found here, and entertainingly, an illustration of Lt. Sowrey’s victory over the L32 may be found within the deep reservoir of Rosebud’s WWI and Early Aviation Image Archive, the link that prompted my…
Card modeling, meet Blimp Week
(75 Words. January 26, 2004, 02:18 PM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
Vickers Transoceanic Airship from Currell’s Card Models. The models are free as downloads. The Airship page also links to some interesting historical docs on the background of the model. On the free models list page he also offers an H. G. Wells Land Ironclad, the historical R-101 airship (also a mooring mast, and (be still my beating heart) the rocket…
Blimpband: ADSL?
(27 Words. January 20, 2004, 10:57 PM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
The Register: Airships to deliver broadband to rural areas, anti-blog news and humor site reports. ADSL: Airship Digital Subscriber Line. No word yet on snappy uniforms….
BLIMP WEEK update: BLIMP CRASH!
(219 Words. December 05, 2003, 10:15 AM, Comments: 1) MORE >>>
Goodyear blimp drifts into truck; cameraman injured (SF Chronicle) The “Spirit of America” got away yesterday. Here’s a pic. Somedays, I miss borrowing wire photos and running them here. But I’m trying to respect creators’ rights so, uh, no pic here, darn it. While I’m referring to Blimp Week, I should link to the category page. Several of the entries…
Eyewitness
(184 Words. May 04, 2003, 07:16 AM, Comments: 1) MORE >>>
May I call your attention to the most recently posted comment under my Blimp Week chestnut, The Wreck of the Shenandoah: a genuine eye-witness account from one Robert McCoy. Man, this internet thing just might work out. Feedback like this is the obverse of this site’s magical ability to attract those it discusses into discourse. See also the recent comment…
You've got Blimp!
(86 Words. March 31, 2003, 03:12 PM, Comments: 1) MORE >>>
lta-mail is an informational page on Hewlett-Packard’s website exploring a new intraoffice mail delivery system initaitive intended to demonstrate the many efficient ways that Compaq and HP are merging corporate cultures and adding value for shareholders the world over. [A big TYVM to hot tipper Eric! Your prize is already lost in the mail!] (And in contrast to the snarky…
Blimp Week Bonus Beats
(81 Words. February 24, 2003, 07:40 AM, Comments: 1) MORE >>>
The horror of blimps: “Using the artificial convection of my central heating, the blimp stealthily departed my office. It moved silently through the living and drifted to the staircase. Gliding wraithlike over the staircase it then entered the bedroom where my wife and I lay sleeping peacefully.” I laughed, and laughed, and then I laughed some more. Then Viv came…
blimp week followup part MCMLXXI
(101 Words. August 21, 2002, 04:15 PM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
NYT: Big Blimp that apparently couldn’t is a story I noted in the Times just before we went to California in late May. I stubbed an entry on it here and forgot all about it. The article details the mad vision, and apparent business failure, of Cargolifter AG and the company’s founder, Carl von Gablenz. Boeing’s investment of emergency funding…
Ghost Blimp
(68 Words. August 18, 2002, 11:37 AM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
60 years later, pilots’ fate still a mystery is the headline for this wire service aricle I saw in the sunday Seattle Times-PI joint edition. To summarize, during WWII, a Navy coast patrol blimp returned from a short mission sans crew; the gondola of this blimp later became the gondola for one of the flagship Goodyear blimps. Goodyear provides some…
UFOs: Blimps!
(734 Words. August 08, 2002, 10:40 AM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
Space.com’s Investigation Casts Light on the Mysterious Flying Black Triangle. Some Nevada-based nutball-science shop, the National Institute for Discovery Science, has been getting plenty of link with a recently released study concerning the contemporary “black triangle” variant of yoofo. They theorize that said inky deltas are super-secret military LTA craft: that’s BLIMP to me and thee, English. (Is it just…
MeFi, /. Play Catch-Up
(62 Words. August 06, 2002, 04:47 PM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
Metafilter poster GriffX cites the excellent article “Death of a Dirigible”, which alert and longtime readers of mike.whybark.com will recall cited as a part of my research links in my own account of the wreck of the airship Shenandoah published during the original Blimp Week, these many weeks ago. Just kidding about the catch-up, you smart mobs out there!…
BLIMP WEEK UPDATE PART UMPTEEN
(184 Words. July 09, 2002, 10:16 AM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
Now on ebay: Own your own blimp! Someone else’s loss is your gain. We found this SEA DOO blimp hung up on one of our fences on our ranch (in the middle of nowhere). It was fully inflated with helium and flying a couple of hundred feet in the air, so there are no holes in it. It has at…
Yatta followup (for pf, I think)
(123 Words. June 23, 2002, 11:19 PM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
This Yatta! site, via a link from this “fanimutation” via yesterday’s guest star explains why there are silly Japanese men singing while wearing fig leaves. Lyrics here. And since I first heard of Yatta! via Paul Frankenstein not very long ago, I should mention that he noted, before I did, that my ID of Moffet Field from I-5 was a…
Moffet Field from I-5 (Blimp Week followup part IV)
(104 Words. June 02, 2002, 10:48 AM, Comments: 3) MORE >>>
From the mid-twenties until the beginning of World War II, the Navy had at its disposal two fully-equipped LTA bases from which the great dirigibles could operate. These were, and remain, Lakehurst in New Jersey, the first of these bases, and the lesser-known Moffet Field in Sunnyvale California, just south of Anaheim (just south of the newspaper offices of…
Blimp Week Followup Pt. III
(733 Words. May 31, 2002, 10:54 AM, Comments: 3) MORE >>>
In my longish story on the Wreck of the Shenandoah, I mentioned the release, and subsequent about face by the publisher, of a song by the same name within a week of the disaster. At the time, I was unable to find words or music to the song, although I suspected that a child’s school paper on the event was…
Piranha Airships (Blimp Week Followup Part II)
(233 Words. May 26, 2002, 07:13 AM, Comments: 3) MORE >>>
Piranha Airships is a Puget Sound area manufacturer of fully-operational toy airships. These airships are about two and a half feet long, and have a single band-driven prop slung elegantly under the nose of the gasbag. I’m a happy owner, and encourage you too to purchase a vessel. They are so simply engineered, it makes me smile just to think…
Blimp Week followup Pt. I
(98 Words. May 18, 2002, 12:13 PM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
In the May 18 edition of the Seattle P-I, a story by Mike Barber picks up on the initial Blimp Week story of Boeing’s investment in CargoLifter: Dirigibles get the call: Uncle Sam wants you Dirigibles — massive flying machines that went the way of the mammoth a half-century ago — are being resurrected as high-tech weapons in the war…
... and another wreck, much less interesting
(479 Words. May 08, 2002, 07:24 AM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
In January of 2001, a blimp owned and operated by Las Vegas-based Airship USA slipped the surly bonds of Earth and man and wandered the skies of the greater San Francisco metropolitan area before finally crashing into a Bay Area restaurant. Remarkably, no one was hurt in the incident, and even more remarkably, no one interpreted the event as an…
STONES on BLIMP WEEK Coverage
(261 Words. May 08, 2002, 05:03 AM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
Just so my gentle readers don’t think I was yanking anybody’s chain, here’s a wire story with photos about Tuesday’s Rolling Stones - Blimp Week cross promo: Yahoo wire photos which will undoubedly change, and here’s the story proper: “Rolling Stones Announce Yet Another”. I thought about nicking a shot or two, but I’ll wait till the Stones site has…
The Wreck of the Shenandoah
(1781 Words. May 07, 2002, 11:23 AM, Comments: 30) MORE >>>
The screaming of the aluminum girders suddenly ceased. The deep spanging thrum of cables popping slowed. Charles E. Rosendahl clung to a girder and watched the rear half of the great dirigible dwindle below him into the, uh, dark and stormy night. Rosendahl was the navigator on the USS Shenandoah, the first of the US Navy’s four great dirigibles. Reverse-engineered…
the BLIMP WEEK theme song
(233 Words. May 06, 2002, 12:26 PM, Comments: 2) MORE >>>
Ken Goldstein, of the Illuminated Donkey has kindly agreed (actully, he’s done no such thing, and will come away from this performance believing it was all some sort of peculiar dream brought on by one too many egg creams) to perform the BLIMP WEEK theme song for us here in the vast and dusty mike.whybark.com Dirigible Theater, largely abandonded since…
*EXCLUSIVE* STONES ANNOUNCE BLIMP WEEK GRAND FINALE
(208 Words. May 06, 2002, 12:19 PM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
According to Reuters, “Rolling Stones to Blimp New York”. LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Rolling Stones plan to drop in from the sky next week to announce their first tour in three years, according to a U.S. government official. The veteran rockers will commandeer an airship and cruise into Van Cortlandt Park, New York City’s third largest park, in the…
Seattle Pacific Zeppelin Airlines
(117 Words. May 06, 2002, 07:57 AM, Comments: 7) MORE >>>
Shocking news! Recent discoveries indicate that in an alternate timeline, the company which produced the poster above makes money hand over fist over jowl! For a printable PDF, click the image. UPDATE: I’ve realized that I misused the word “Zeppelin” in the poster. Since I depicted the Cargolifter dirigible and not the currently-flying Zeppelin NT I suppose I should…
Getchya BLIMP RIDES heah!
(729 Words. May 05, 2002, 07:35 AM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
from Zeppelin’s announcements page, dated April 19, 2002: Want to ride in a Zeppelin? Me too! The next season begins 19 April. Book flights via Deutsche Zeppelin Reederei: http://www.zeppelinflug.de/pages/D/buchung.htm. Auf deutsch. € 335,00 - € 370,00 per person. Tell them I sent you. They’ll look at you strangely :) Deutsche Zeppelin-Reederei GmbH Allmansweilerstrasse 132 D-88046 Friedrichshafen Deutschland Telefon: +49 (0)…
Sky Ships, a review
(1160 Words. May 04, 2002, 07:15 AM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
Sky Ships, a history of the airship in the United States Navy, published 1990 by Pacifica Press. By William Althoff, 304 pp. Out of print. Buy it from the NAS Lakehurst gift shop online or used from Amazon. Here’s an excerpt concerning the consruction of the Shenandoah at NAS Lakehurst, New Jersey. Finally, it should be noted that Lakehurst is…
BLIMP WEEK, part three
(186 Words. May 03, 2002, 06:53 PM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
OK, I’m making it official. I declare this to be BLIMP WEEK! Seven consecutive entries here at mike.whybark.com will be oriented toward the wonders of lighter-than-air aviation! Tell your friends! Send your mom! Now, technically, I hope to make most of the entries about dirigibles, but Blimp Week is more fun to say. And it’s so utterly opposed to that…
More LTA
(179 Words. May 03, 2002, 01:15 PM, Comments: 0) MORE >>>
Later the same day I dribbled the two scanty grafs on airships headlined “The goodrich blimp?”, this crossed the wires: “Cargolifter buoyed by Boeing partnership” - Reuters Cargolifter, which aims to develop zeppelin-like airships to transport heavy plant and construction loads, said it had signed a letter of intent with plane maker Boeing (NYSE:BA - news) to examine potential business…
The goodrich blimp?
(112 Words. May 02, 2002, 07:03 AM, Comments: 2) MORE >>>
Nope, the Goodyear paper bag. While we’re on the subject, check out Goodyear’s killer site on the company’s long association with lighter-than-air aviation: www.goodyearblimp.com. Includes this page featuring old film footage of lots of interesting things, including a five-ship fleet parade, the christening of the Akron, and other footage that will confirm your pre-extant belief systems regarding lighter-than-air aviation. I…
