Latest News on the Personal Blimp

There are several other news stories in the works.  I'll send details as they become available.

In the meantime, we continue to fly regularly. In the parlance of aviation we are to both "logging hours" and "pushing the flight envelope."  We received permission from the FAA a few weeks ago to take non-paying passengers for joyrides and we've been fitting in as many as practical between the more "serious" test flying.  We've also flown once at night which is just glorious.  We expect to make more evening/night flights as Fall arrives with its cooler afternoons and reduced threat of late day thunderstorms.

We've also started building on our second airship.  From a distance, this second airship will look much like our first. The differences will be in its construction and assembly techniques. We want to incorporate many of the details that we've learned in how to build and operate these beasts before trying out a slimmer shape. (We don't want to change too many things at one time.) We will try a sleeker shape in our third airship that we expect to start building this Winter.

This new airship will be named "Hugo" as our small in homage to the greatest airship captain (and promoter) of all time, Hugo Eckener.  It was Count Zeppelin who both came up with the concept for the giant airships and founded the company that still bear his name. However, after the Count died in 1917, it was Eckener who drove these aircraft and the company to prominence in the 1920's and 1930's.

Eckener was also an ardent anti-Nazi. As a result, he was pushed aside when Hitler came to power. (Historians speculate that he was far too popular a national figure to be killed.) The era of giant airships was long gone by the time the Nazis were defeated. Eckener's aviation career was thus over and he died in obscurity in 1954.  Today, he is little remembered outside the small circle of airship historians and fans. But soon at least there will be a new airship flying that carries his name.

We also, as Eckener did, continue the never-ending hustle for sponsors and investors. Things are looking favorable on these financial fronts. However, I won't "jinx" our prospects by talking much about them just yet.

Regards to all, Dan Nachbar

September 20, 2007:

There is a nice story on Alberto in the October issue of
Popular Science magazine. There is even a cute little picture
of the ship on the cover of the issue. I'm amused that they
decided to run the story in the "do it yourself" section of
the magazine.  Somehow, I don't think they fully realized
what's involved, even though they did rate the project as "hard."
Also, the $500,000 "price tag" reflects our entire development
budget (nearly 6 year's worth of work) and not the cost of the
aircraft itself (which is only a small fraction of that.)

The October issue is on newstands now.

You can see a shot of the cover by clicking this link --
http://www.personalblimp.com/images/press/pop_sci_cover_oct_2007.jpg
and the story is here
http://www.personalblimp.com/images/press/pop_sci_oct_2007.jpg

(Be advised that each file is nearly a megabyte.  Attempting
to view them with a slow internet connection may cause grumpiness.)

Construction of Hugo (our second ship) is perking along.  It looks like
the envelope (That's the fabric part.) will be done first.  In fact,
the last (of 14) gores is being sewn today and we will begin sewing
the gores together tomorrow.  We've still got a few weeks of work
before the new envelope is done.  After that, we'll probably try it
out on Alberto (our first ship which is the same size and shape)
while the rest of Hugo (engine, cabin, etc) is completed.

That's it for now.

Regards to all,
Dan Nachbar