I had a great opportunity last week. My supervisor and several of my co-workers were afforded the opportunity to fly for an hour on Goodyear's Blimp "Spirit of America" here in the Los Angeles area.

During our briefing the pilot (one of the Asst. Chief Pilots) asked if anyone was a pilot. When we got airborne he allowed us to get some dual, logbook sign-off and the whole deal. I got .4 of dual, which went by at a very leisure 30kts indicated. With the window down, and my elbow hanging out. Just like driving my pick-up!

It was a great experience. That Rudder is a tough one! Here are a couple of pictures.

I know not very "Backcountry", but the aerodrome was grass!!

Goodyear's Blimp Facility in Carson CA.


Getting Some dual!


Long Beach/L.A. Harbor-Sea Launch at its berth


Right Over the RMS Queen Mary at 1000'

That is awesome! Can you hear ATC roll their eyes when requesting flight following?

als wrote:That is awesome! Can you hear ATC roll their eyes when requesting flight following?

Yeah, at one point the captain said that he was switching to talk to LGB tower. Someone asked a question that required a rather long answer. At the conclusion of the answer we were still outside the airspace, and in plenty of time to make the call!! The tower gave a call out to a cessna going over the top of us to Torrance. He said we were kinda hard to miss!

That is awesome. What is even more awesome is that we both posted blimp threads simultaneously.

If I had an opportunity to fly in one of those, I'd hop on it in a millisec. Who cares if it doesn't have Bushwheels? It's still pretty cool IMHO.

I may be misstookin again, but seems ta me that the 26" Goodyear's are used by some as, ( lower case ), "bushweels."

I meant to refer to the Goodyear 26" BLIMP tires in the previous hurried posting. sorry.

Years ago when I lived in gardena, I always used to see the blimp alongside I-405 (San Diego freeway) in Carson or maybe Dominguez Hills. Is it still based there?

Eric

One time when I lived in Santa Barbara, I had the opportunity to take some instrument dual, and we took off with a 600 ft ceiling on an IFR flight plan to Santa Ynez. When we popped out of the marine layer, there was the Fuji blimp cruising down the coast, on top. Was a cool sight.

hotrod150 wrote:Years ago when I lived in gardena, I always used to see the blimp alongside I-405 (San Diego freeway) in Carson or maybe Dominguez Hills. Is it still based there?

Eric

Yep, still there. Near the intersection of the 405 and 110 freeway's. They are now building a new ops building to replace the one that has been there for about 40+years.