Oh, yeah, baby, blimps—or rather rigid-frame airships—are back! This time, for sure!
Why do I care? Well, settle back in your easy chair, and smoke ‘em if you got ‘em, because the backstory for this post is intense!
Close to 40 years ago, I worked with “Dee”,1 a woman who, in addition to a Ph.D. in French Lit from Columbia, had a serious Jones for blimps, which (somehow) struck me as particularly amusing because I, as a semi-compulsive newspaper reader, could remember reading a number of stories over the years before I met Dee proclaiming “the blimps are back”, each article earnestly “explaining” that while past “the blimps are back” stories hadn’t panned out, this time it was the real deal. All the old problems had been resolved and soon the big boys would be seen floating everywhere.
Except that that never happened. And now, flash forward 40 years, it still hasn’t happened, a phenomenon over which I have gleefully chuckled in several previous posts, starting with this one. On every occasion, the promised blimps never materialized, despite being totally cool in concept.
Now, Dee was a purist, who insisted on blimps, which don’t have rigid frames, as opposed to airships, which do, but I’m not so picky. If it’s fat and if it tries to fly, I’ll make fun of it.
I had a lot of fun with the U.S. Army’s Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System, which consisted of several actual 240-foot blimps, which cost the U.S. taxpayer a cool $2.7 billion before the Army was forced to admit the whole program was crap after one of the blimps went rogue over eastern Pennsylvania, shorting out power for 20,000 unamused residents before state police shot it down, “something Army officials had been unable to do for the past five years, thanks to effective lobbying by Raytheon Corp., aka ‘Blimps ‘R Us’,” said I with a snicker.
The most recent big balloon disaster was the crash landing of the epic “Airlander 10” (pictured above), a 300-foot monster that was, occasionally, the biggest thing in the skies. The big guy is now being retired, its manufacturer, Hybrid Air Vehicles has announced, while they “rethink the skies”2 in order to come up with a production model. Said HAV’s unflappable CEO, Stephen McGlennan, “Many people ask me this question—when will Airlander be flying again? My answer is this—look for many, many Airlanders flying again, ready to be delivered to customers and used around the world.”
Right on, baby! But I’m saving the best—the very best—for last: 500 foot “Flying Whales” made in France and financed by China! Running on hybrid-electric power (how hip is that?) and “scheduled” for a test flight in (probably) 2021! Can’t wait that long? Lockheed has a 280-foot LMH-1 airship set to go into production next year! By 2021 (or maybe a little later), there could be 12 of these babies flying over Alaska to service remote gas and oil installations!
Dee, I hope you can find room in your heart for these rigid-frame monsters of the skies, because they look awesome!
Check this space for future developments!
1. Dee’s actual name was Diane, “Dee” being used to distinguish her from another “Diane” in the office, who had left before I showed up, so it was a long time before I got to know her by her real name.
2. “Rethink the skies”! I like the sound of that!
