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British airship R.23.

Airship USS Los Angeles landing on carrier USS Saratoga, 27 January 1928. | src War History Online and San Diego Air & Space Museum

aviationgeek71

While not as cool as an airplane, I still have a thing for the glory days of airships. Graf Zeppelin, LZ 127, at Mines Field, Los Angeles, 26 August 1929.

aerospaceage

Germans watching the start of a Zeppelin Call No.: 12_00264 Corp. Name: Zeppelin. Subject: Zeppelin. Notes: Zeppelin with onlooker. Description: 3 x 5 Black and White Photo.

aerospaceage

The German Zeppelin “Hindenburg” over New York City in the 1930th Call No.: 12_00051 Corp. Name: Zeppelin. Subject: Zeppelin. Notes: Universal Pictures, “‘The Hindenburg’ over New York City”. Description: 7.5 x 9 Black and White Photo.

foreverinmyhead

aerospaceage

Graf Zeppelin German airship. Photo Call No.: 12_00212 Corp. Name: Zeppelin. Subject: Zeppelin. Notes: Graf Zeppelin in hangar. Description: 8 x 10 Black and White Photo.

historical-spaceflight

The rigid airship USS Macon (ZRS-5) at Moffett Field, and inside Hanger One, during the early 1930s.

Moffett Field would become home to the Ames Aeronautical Laboratory, established by the NACA, in 1939. Hanger One is currently undergoing restoration to remove toxic materieals used during it’s initial construction.

blimpqueen

Let’s talk about blimps and humanity’s fascination with them.

The word “Blimp” comes (likely) as an onomatopoeia from Lt. A.D. Conningham of the British Royal Navy, who thumped a blimp and attributed the word to the sound it made.

Blimps are non-rigid, while zeppelins and dirigibles are rigid, though the term “dirigible” just means that something can be steered, and as such could be applied to a non-rigid blimp.

Blimps have long been the subject of fascination and the subject of dangerous air shows, or of futuristic imagination. It has been thought many times that the viability of blimps in a wide variety of applications is slowed only by the present technology.

The Navy used blimps throughout World War 2, with 145 blimps being built between 1942-1945 to serve as patrol ships or training ships.

Blimps are also round and vast enough to have encroached on the domain of the cryptic and unknown.

Even advertising giants the size of whales have used blimps to push their product, because, as Goodyear knows, blimps are eye-catching and fascinating.

Blimps have also been the subject of war-time children’s books: in “Blossom the Brave Balloon,” the titular airship is fed “Strawberries and cream, chocolate ice cream, and meringues.” That’s one way to fatten a blimp, I suppose.

To find out just how magical the blimp really us, look at these excerpts from the book, Blimp!, which is about as obsessed with the big bags as you can imagine…

All in all, we owe much to the blimp, and if someone should find it of interest to draw art of animal people that resemble one, then perhaps they should be proud to represent such a glorious and popular bag of gas through their efforts. When are we getting a blimp emoji??

dieselfutures

USS Macon (ZRS-5)

for-all-mankind

One of Goodyear’s blimps passing the Space Shuttle Columbia on LC-39A prior to her maiden voyage. Goodyear based one of its airships in Pompano Beach, Florida, south of the spaceport.

for-all-mankind

One of Goodyear’s blimps passing the Space Shuttle Columbia on LC-39A prior to her maiden voyage. Goodyear based one of its airships in Pompano Beach, Florida, south of the spaceport.