Random exploration for undiscovered autocross venues lead me to this fascinating website wherein I discovered I'm only about an hour from this place:
Which is apparently still going strong, as evidenced by this 2012 photo:
Not much farther down the road is Harvey Point
which is another interesting story....
That looks just like the air dock in Akron Ohio.
Blimps are very neat. The USCG was experimenting with them for catching Drug Runners. They could stay on station for 8 hours (or more) unlike a plane or a helicopter that had it's time measured in mere minutes
Well, there went an hour and a half
bravenrace wrote:
That looks just like the air dock in Akron Ohio.
which is right across the street from the akron pull-a-part.
Lancer007 wrote:
Well, there went an hour and a half
Yup, I just got back here too!
This is great - I was amazed at all the airports in the Western Chicago 'burbs.
Hal
SuperDork
11/26/13 8:37 p.m.
If I want to look at blimps, all I need to do is go to the local airport (10 min drive) at the right time. Lots of times I can just take pictures from the front porch.
One of the Goodyear one's goes by here fairly often. Kinda cool to see it floating by.
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patgizz wrote:
bravenrace wrote:
That looks just like the air dock in Akron Ohio.
which is right across the street from the akron pull-a-part.
While the blimps are no longer housed there (they are in a similar structure in Springfield), they fly over my house (and probably yours at times) all the time. My dog barks at them when they are over our yard, and then stops when they leave. It's like he thinks we own the air space above as well as the land.
In reply to Woody:
Well he is a pretty good dog. Funny thing is, one of our old dogs used to do the same thing, but when we lived in a different house. When we moved to this one, he stopped doing it. We had another dog at the same time, and he never did it. Dogs are kind of funny.
yeah they fly over us all the time. pretty low too. once it was low enough to get the pilot to wave at us.
iadr wrote:
mad_machine wrote:
Blimps are very neat. The USCG was experimenting with them for catching Drug Runners. They could stay on station for 8 hours (or more) unlike a plane or a helicopter that had it's time measured in mere minutes
.22 cal a few times and ffft? no?
nope.. individual air sacs inside.. and most blimps get shot at once a flight.. they are always coming back in with holes in them
For some of the big games, Direct brings out their TV screen blimp. Thank you, that is all.
mad_machine wrote:
iadr wrote:
mad_machine wrote:
Blimps are very neat. The USCG was experimenting with them for catching Drug Runners. They could stay on station for 8 hours (or more) unlike a plane or a helicopter that had it's time measured in mere minutes
.22 cal a few times and ffft? no?
nope.. individual air sacs inside.. and most blimps get shot at once a flight.. they are always coming back in with holes in them
About 10 years ago a Goodyear blimp crashed east of Akron after hitting the top of a tree. By chance, I was there within minutes of the incident. When the blimp hit the tree it totally deflated and crashed to the ground. I'm not doubting you, just asking. How did that happen if it had individual air sacs inside?
I walked out of my house one night during the last full moon and heard an odd engine noise overhead. We have a grass strip nearby so small planes are common but this sounded different and the volume was near constant. I looked up to see a blimp cruise directly overhead in the darkness and silhouette itself against the moon. Very surreal.
In reply to bravenrace:
Maybe it was the safest way to crash. That's my guess.
I remember having the MetLife blimp over my shoulder during a tennis tournament many years ago. It was surprisingly loud in that setting.
Lesley
PowerDork
11/27/13 4:57 p.m.
bravenrace wrote:
In reply to Woody:
Well he is a pretty good dog. Funny thing is, one of our old dogs used to do the same thing, but when we lived in a different house. When we moved to this one, he stopped doing it. We had another dog at the same time, and he never did it. Dogs are kind of funny.
My cat used to stare up and chatter at the Re/Max air balloon.
Uh, yeah, go ahead and catch it, goooood kitty....
In reply to Lesley:
My dog eats kitty's (I did say he was a good dog,didn't I?).
Interesting tidbit about some of those Blimps. The The Skyship 600 used two ducted fans for propulsion. The engine that drove them was a Turbo Flat six made by Porsche