There was a blimp in Harrisburg today and it made me wonder: If I wanted to quit my job and become a professional blimp pilot, how hard would it be to learn? Where does one go to learn to be a blimp pilot?
Goodyear trains its own pilots. I haven’t seen many blimp flying schools around. I suppose hot air balloons are probably the closest. The link says that potential pilots have to have extensive airplane experience before they qualify.
I am a perpetual fixed-wing flight student myself and I got to see a blimp (try) to land at my home airport during a fairly heavy breeze. The thing was all over the place and the ground crew of 30 or more was frantically trying to grab lines to secure it as it bobbed all around.
I would guess that they are probably pretty hard to fly. I am pretty sure they are a lot harder to land than airplanes but I could be wrong. You have to have a big ground crew on hand and I bet the ATC procedures are pretty strict.
Back when my husband had fantasies about building an ultralight blimp (meaning 1-person and FAR Part 103 compliant, not extra floaty) he actually called up Goodyear and was transferred to one of their blimp guys. Had a fairly extended conversation and got all his questions answered. You might want to try that route.
I do know that blimp (more properly “airship”) pilots are required to have commercial and instrument pilot certificates and also a multi-engine rating and quite a bit of experience. Blimps fly lower than most airplanes, are more affected by certain types of weather, and have issues other aircraft don’t. Like requiring large ground crews. Getting the licenses and required experience would probably cost at least $50,000, very likely more than that.
There are one and two man blimps you can purchase for you own personal use and amusement, the licensing requirements being somewhat less than those required for Goodyear pilots. We have one in our local area. The gentleman who owns/flies it has mentioned that it costs about $3,000 to fill it with helium, and since the darn thing leaks (all airships leak to some extent) you have to keep topping it off. Most annoying.
And that’s about the extent of my knowledge on the subject.
No cite, and IANAP, but I’ve heard airship pilots on TV shows say that it’s about as hard as flying a small plane. Presumably straight and level flight is quite simple, although you have to anticipate turns and other moves far in advance, since the blimp takes a long time to respond to control inputs.
It’s probably the unusual situations–high winds, rough weather, etc.–as well as landings, which I’ve heard are the most challenging part of flying any aircraft, that take special training and more than ordinary flying experience.
Bimps are cool! Personally, I’d like to see a return to the days when there were Zeppelins in the skies… Oh, I know it will never happen, but hey, I can dream. 
And while we’re here:
Brian Griffin: Amazing. You can barely drive a car, yet you’re allowed to fly a blimp.
Peter Griffin: Yeah, America’s great, isn’t it?
Read somewhere (mighta been in a Maxim or a Popular Mechanics) that the military was playing with the idea of using airship freighters to carry supplies overseas. Basically, such vehicles would be able to carry more cargo than an airplane (and with better fuel efficiency) and would be faster than a ship. Of course, these things wouldn’t fly over any warzones, but would land in nearby safe bases where the supplies could be moved by conventional means to the front.
Plus, they’d be keen to have around at airshows.
Hurrah!
I wonder if they’re still going? I haven’t heard anything about it since then…
I suppose it’s too much to hope someone will start a Brisbane-Singapore-Bombay-Cairo-Marseilles-London air service using Flying Boats, is it?
Not so much “special and more than ordinary” but rather training specific to blimps rather than fixed wing aircraft.
Lovely, the same company (assuming Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik is a successor to Luftschiffbau Zeppelin) at the same location, in Friedrichshaven, with the proper name. (The first commercially successful enterprise conducted with LTA vessels by Ferdinand, Graf von Zeppelin, was excursions over Lake Constance, in German the Bodensee, in 1911 using an airship named the Bodensee.
Sometimes, defying Murphy’s Law, history is kind enough to repeat herself even when we do learn from her.
They used to land the Goodyear blimp in Williamsport 20ish years ago. I got to watch it more than once and you are right it is all over the place - rather entertaining to watch.
Got some plans for Super Bowl XLI, do you?
This subject comes up from time to time. No airship ever made has been capable of carrying even a substantial fraction of the payload of a 747 or C5. They are of course very much slower than jet aircraft, and enormously more vulnerable to weather. Their fuel specifics (per ton-mile) are not currently competitive.
Naw, it was just one of those odd things that go through my brain. I have almost an hour’s drive so I have plenty of time to think of weird stuff.
I grew up near Akron, OH. in the 40’s & 50’s, so we saw the Goodyear blimps fairly often. Actually they are technically dirigibles or air ships, a blimp is just an oversized baloon that may be somewhat aerodynamic in design. I’ve always called them blimps though, just as most people do.
http://www.blimpinfo.com/index.html
It is my understanding that “dirigible” refers to a lighter-than-air craft with a rigid structure supporting the gas bags, like the Hindenburg and the Zeppelins, and that blimps are essentially “soft,” with no such framework, but that “airship” can apply to either type.
By that definition, the Goodyear airships are, in fact, blimps, as you can see here.
IIRC, there have been relatively few dirigibles built since the Hindenburg crashed, because the weight cost of the structure is too great if you have to use helium instead of hydrogen. And because no airship since that time has approached the size of the Hindenburg.
Oh, and BTW, the official Goodyear Blimp site calls them blimps.
No, blimps are dirigibles – the word literally means “directable” as in “it flies where you tell it to” as opposed to a balloon, which is at the mercy of the winds (though you can control ascent/descent to a great extent).
Blimps are non-rigid airships, meaning that the lifting body is comprised of one or more inflatable cells with no structural framework giving it rigidity. A deflated blimp is a sac of tough rubberized fabric. The rigid airships (Zeppelins and the Navy’s ZR series) were essentially flying skyscrapers-turned-sideways, with a cigar-shaped duralumin framing giving it the classic shape; the lift was provided by cells suspended inside the framework.
It’s really easy to fly a blimp. What’s really tough is getting it to go where you want it to. I piloted one of the Goodyear blimps for about 10 minutes several years ago, as did my dad, my Uncle Steve, and my cousins Doug and (IIRC) Andy. My dad, who worked for Goodyear at the time, managed to get us seats on a flight. (Flying around tourists who have family that work for Goodyear is a big part of what the blimps do; this was actually my second time up in one.) Anyway, my cousin Doug, who is a bit of a wise-ass, made some comment about how easy it must be to fly something like this, so the pilot said “Oh yeah? Try it.”
After we got Doug breathing again he got in the pilot’s seat, followed by the rest of us in turn. I’d never think to fly a plane with no training, but a blimp is easy – it moves so slowly that you’re never going to careen into something; you may putter towards it, but you’ll have enough time before you hit to get out of the chair and let the professional take over. Also, the blimp maintains course, throttle and elevation (subject to the winds) indefinitely if you take your hands off the controls, so you don’t really have to know what you’re doing. Unlike a plane which I understand requires a hand on the yoke like a car needs a hand on the wheel even when shooting down a straight run of highway.
That said, none of us but the pilot had any ability to get the blimp from point A to any specified point B with any facility. As the wind changed (which it did a lot, if mostly in small degree), your control function would change dramatically, esp. throttle – the pilot told us to steer towards a smokestack off in the distance and when I had the throttle open a certain amount we made almost no forward progress. 10 minutes later when my cousin Andy was at the yoke (actually, I can’t remember if it’s a yoke or a joystick, although I do recall that pitch/elevation was controlled by a big wheel to the right of the chair) he had the throttle in the same place and I could see us eating up the distance towards the smokestack. Pitch and yaw were also at the mercy of the winds, but to a lesser degree, at least when I was up there.
–Cliffy
Did I ever tell you you’re my long-lost cousin? 
Only with fighters designed to be unstable for better maneuvrability. “Normal” airplanes can be left alone in cruise once trimmed, and in fact will fly more smoothly if you let go. Control inputs are required only to change direction or vertical speed.
Thanks for the story.