AN AIRSHIP'S DOWN-TO-EARTH CREW, They travel the world to guide high-flying dirigibles to a safe

starledger ^ | 10.04.08 | MARIAM JUKAKU

[Coleus]

Clark native Tim Lichardus hasn't had a place to call home for the last 12 years -- no apartment, no house, no timeshare. His job as a blimp crewman requires him to live out of a suitcase 11 months of the year. But the job is not without perks. There's no mortgage, no rent and no lawn. In addition, he's traveled to Jerusalem, Rio de Janeiro and China. But he isn't the one waving to worshippers, tourists and sports fans from a thousand feet in the air.

He's on terra firma -- come rain, snow or heavy winds -- directing the crew of nine men who drag the blimp into the wind for takeoff and run to pull down on its tethers when it lands.

Not the easiest life for a 48-year-old who doesn't even have a home address.

"We're perpetually traveling," Lichardus said. "I live in an RV. If I'm not in my RV, I'm living in my hotel room."

One common misconception, Lichardus said, is that the airship can be deflated, packed up and shipped off to the next location. In fact, it is always kept inflated and monitored 24 hours a day for leaks, even when it's docked. So going from a football game at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind. to a tennis match in New York means a painfully slow journey. They travel only 250 to 300 miles a day, with the pilot flying the blimp and the ground crew following it on the road.

"It's a lot of waiting," Lichardus said. When they're not waiting, they're communicating with the pilot via cellphone and text-mes saging, setting up and taking down the mooring mast, and maintaining their equipment and trailers.

[xcamel]

[LiteKeeper]

Kewl!

[Devilinbaggypants]

Interseting article...thanks for posting.

[Yo-Yo]

"It's a lot of waiting," Lichardus said. When they're not waiting, they're communicating with the pilot via cellphone and text-messaging, setting up and taking down the mooring mast, and maintaining their equipment and trailers.

Rut Roh, I don't think the FCC would approve.

[KarlInOhio]

Rut Roh, I don't think the FCC would approve.

Is the flight control computer going to suddenly turn the blimp upside down when interfered with?

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

There’s a difference between “blimps” and “dirigibles”. The article uses the terms interchangeably, which is confusing.

[Yo-Yo]

Noooo. The FCC bans cell phone use from aircraft, even from hot air balloons, because the cell phone system relies on a network of cells that re-use frequencies. When you're up in an aircraft, you can radiate to many towers at the same time, interfering with calls.

The system was designed to be used at ground level, with cell phone towers usually about 150' in the air, so that at most a cell phone could only 'see' towers within a couple of miles. Raising the cell phone to 5,000' means you can see cell phone towers tens of miles away.

Usually it doesn't matter, and it's done all the time. (The heroes of Flight 93 on 9/11 used cell phones to call loved ones and that is how they found out the fate of the other hijacked aircraft.)

Still, it's illegal to do so, and I wouldn't be admitting to doing it in print.

[numberonepal]

Is the flight control computer going to suddenly turn the blimp upside down when interfered with?

Yeah, but it's gonna take about 20 minutes.

[Coleus]

what are the differences, i don’t know..

[Ditto]

They could be (probably are) using dedicated air-to-ground freqencies. From your FCC link....

The FCC has approved rules that allow in-flight voice and data services, including broadband services using dedicated air-to-ground frequencies that were previously used for seat-back telephone service.

[Tijeras_Slim]

A dirigible has an internal rigid framework holding gas balloonettes. A blimp is non-rigid, the envelope being the gas bag.

[Yo-Yo]

They could be (probably are) using dedicated air-to-ground freqencies. From your FCC link....

Only if they were flying commercial and the aircraft was equipped with In Flight Entertainment systems.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

I've always used “dirigible” to refer to a rigid airship (e.g. the Zeppelin, which had an internal framework), and “blimp” to refer to an airship without any rigid framework. Since you asked, I checked — here's what Wikipedia says about it:

“In modern common usage, the terms zeppelin, dirigible and airship are used interchangeably for any type of rigid airship, with the term blimp alone used to describe non-rigid airships. Although the blimp also qualifies as a “dirigible”, the term is seldom used with blimps. In modern technical usage, airship is the term used for all aircraft of this type, with zeppelin referring only to aircraft of that manufacture, and blimp referring only to non-rigid airships.”

[Ditto]

Only if they were flying commercial and the aircraft was equipped with In Flight Entertainment systems.

I don't think that has to be the case. I'm sure that Goodyear and the others who own these flying advertisements can afford to spring for the proper two-way hardware.

Heck... if the blimp is out over Western Kansas and the ground crew is tracking, a cell phone is not something they would want to rely on. They would want a point-to-point two way radio.

[Kevmo]

bmflr

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

Your question made me think of a joke (maybe it's funny, who am I to judge?).

Q. What the differences between Joe Biden and a blimp?

A. One’s a huge gasbag with no spine, or other supporting framework. The other’s a type of airship.

[Ladysmith]

I was kind of wondering the same. I didn’t think anyone was building dirigibles anymore and the title caught my interest because of it.

[Excellence]

I worked briefly at the 76 Union station in Huntington Beach. One day a Goodyear blimp did a touch and go in the empty lot across the street. The control the pilot had of that blimp was just astonishing. Scared the you-know-what out of me because I thought he might be crash landing. But he was just having fun. That was an interesting time.