Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
Jim Logajan wrote:
On the other hand, here's a video someone took of a Goodyear blimp
caught in a thunderstorm trying to make headway in turbulent
conditions:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERI8_cprgMo

Wow! that was cool!

It ended in a crash, but no fatalities according to the NTSB report:

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?e...06X00943&key=1

They were vry lucky, really.

I have a bit more on that airship incident, if you are interested in that
sort of stuff. The following is quoted with permission from Rick Zitarosa
who posted this to the University of Colorado e-mail Airship-List about a
month ago:

"This was the summer 2005 wreck of the STARS AND STRIPES near its home
base at Pompano. The pilot took off with marginal weather
approaching....the only passenger aboard was his BROTHER. Apparently it
was figured he could take his brother up for a spin and get back before
any bad weather affected the flight or field conditions.

He got caught in the storm that radar had pretty-well WARNED him about,
from all appearances he either badly trimmed or outright STALLED the
airship and then it fell down stern first and hit a warehouse.

This particular pilot had already been previously implicated in a mooring
mast deflation accident, from what I'm told (but Goodyear is an outfit
that has always been known to "give the dog TWO BITES" unless the mistake
might be from incredible stupidity or carelessness.)

The ship was lost, though the nearly-new envelope was later repaired at
no small expense. This was the FOURTH Goodyear airship to be wrecked in
FIVE YEARS and there was considerable speculation about the fact that
this spate of accidents had started to occur when many of the Senior LTA
pilots had started to retire and,

a) whether the ship would be replaced AT ALL

b) whether Goodyear might throw in the towel on its "in house" LTA
operation and simply outsource the whole thing to some outfit like
Lightship Group and start flying A-150's on a "wet lease" with the
Goodyear name simply decaled onto the side.

The pilot ended up "grounded" and in a desk job for the duration of the
investigation at the Goodyear Wingfoot Lake facility where other LTA
employees could pass his desk and glare at him daily. The Investigation
Board was not particularly charitable to the pilot's judgement (a couple
of old-time pilots' judgement renderings following review of amateur
video of the situation were downright PROFANE) and the pilot was
eventually "sacked." (Remember, Goodyear originally provided a lot of
pilots into the Navy program of World War II who became senior Reserve
Officers/Instructors and there was always a heavy "Goodyear" stamp on
Navy LTA.. Indeed, many of the postwar Goodyear blimp pilots were former
Navy or trained by former Navy and even a couple of pilots still flying
today remember "learning LTA" in the 70's and 80's from old-time pilots
who were TYRANTS! One of the old Senior pilots had the nickname " Old
Turkey Neck" because he could be simultaneuosly be reprimanding a new
student pilot and still lean his head WAY OUT the car window to bellow at
a ground crewman r" Hey, what the hell you doing with THAT LINE?????")

Am told that he is actually a decent pilot and a HELL OF A NICE GUY, but
as far as Goodyear was concerned he was directly responsible for losing a
$10 million airship and he had to go. He apparently still works in the
LTA industry today....there is something of a limited number of pilots,
particularly in peak months, and Goodyear is not the only game in town.

Have some good video footage of the old N10A AMERICA making a
(successful) emergency landing in a sandstorm in Texas...will try to post
it one of these days."

If you've never read the account of the
Navy's airships you should. The stories of their encounters with CB is
unforgettable reading.

I have several books on my bookshelf that have harrowing (and tragic)
tales of such encounters, including non-U.S. navy ops:

"Sky Ships - A History of the Airship in the United States Navy"
by William F. Althoff,

"The Zeppelin in Combat - A History of the German Naval Airship Division,
1912 - 1918" by Douglas H. Robinson,

"Dr. Eckener's Dream Machine - The Great Zeppelin and the Dawn of Air
Travel" by Douglas Botting.