SalemNews.com, Salem, MA

News

'A different kind of flying'

By Jonathan Phelps
Correspondent
Published: August 15, 2008

11Nine men surrounded the red-and-white dart-shaped airship to prepare for flight. Some gripped ropes to stabilize it; others held onto the cabin to keep the giant helium balloon from floating away, while another man gave signals.

As Bradbury started the engine, the men simply let go and cleared out of the way as the blimp took off.

"It's an old tried-and-true operation," said Lindsay Gow, the second-in-command pilot for the blimp. "(Crews) have been doing this for a very long time."

Yesterday, the blimp took its last North Shore flight of the summer, ending its season nearly two months early due to fuel costs, Bradbury said.

The 74-gallon fuel tank drains at a rate of 4 gallons per hour, according to the blimp's Web site.

An icon of the skies over Red Sox home games and other events, this year it'll be a no-show at the Topsfield Fair. Instead, it's headed for Springfield for a few days and will eventually be deflated and brought to a large hangar in North Carolina for storage.

Lynne Bohan, spokeswoman at HP Hood, downplayed fuel costs as the reason for the blimp's shorter season.

"We always take fuel costs into consideration," she said, but the schedule is different every year. "We picked these months because they are the best months to capture outdoor activities and the Red Sox games."

The company leases the ship from the Lightship Group in Florida each year. This summer, they decided to only lease the blimp for July and August.

Typical trip

It only took a few minutes for the "lighter than air" zeppelin to reach its cruising altitude of 1,000 feet as it floated across the North Shore and Salem for a quick tour going 32 mph. The sky cleared up and cars on 128 were seen driving below, the ocean was off to the east and the Boston skyline was in the distance to the south.

"It's a different kind of flying," said Bradbury, 59, who has flown many different aircrafts since high school. "The only thing that is the same as other aircrafts is the basic controls and signals (for takeoff and landing)."

On a typical trip to Fenway, the crew of about nine assembles at the airport around 5 p.m., and the blimp is usually at Fenway within an hour of the game.

The Twin 80-horsepower Limbach engines are similar to that of an old Volkswagen beetle, according to Bradbury. And the gondola, which hangs below the 128-foot-long hull, is about the same size as a car, fitting a maximum of five people, including the pilot.

The pilot sits on the left and controls altitude with two wheels attached on either side of the seat. The rudder and side-to-side turning is controlled by foot pedals.

Bradbury says he's one of only about 150 blimp pilots in the world.

"I've been told that NASA has more astronauts than there are blimp pilots," he said.

There are some concerns when flying.

"High wind and thunderstorms are the bane of airship travel," Gow said.

But the blimp is equipped with a GPS with a weather feature.

The blimp made headlines last year when it crashed into the woods in Manchester-by-the-Sea because of a malfunction. Bradbury was at the wheel.

Coming down

As it made one last landing in Beverly, the crew stood in a V shape ready to catch the blimp, which felt like it was vertical coming into the ground. They grabbed the ropes, which dangle permanently, to restabilize the craft. The crew of about 15 people will disperse to other locations around the world.

"This blimp is really unique," Bradbury, the chief pilot of the blimp, said over the headset while in the air. "Usually, blimps are event-driven and only make appearances at them, but Hood has been leasing this blimp since 1995, it is an icon around here."

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