Inventor Soars with Experimental Blimp

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Inventor Soars with Experimental Blimp — An NPR story about Dan Nachbar’s personal blimp.

At daybreak on a recent morning, a strange-looking aircraft is joining the birds in flight.

Dan Nachbar is piloting a 100-foot experimental blimp.

The yellow and black striped blimp has a playful look to it — like the Yellow Submarine fused with Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. But why invent a new kind of blimp?

The pilot is strapped into an old Toyota Camry seat bolted to a slab of wood. This “cabin” is suspended by steel cables beneath the blimp.

“There are no walls, there’s no windshield, so you’re very much out in the open,” Nachbar says. “We wanted flying in this aircraft to feel unlike any other aircraft.”

And it does, according to Mike Kuehlmuss, an airplane mechanic who built the blimp with Nachbar.

Kuehlmuss says most blimps steer like a big cruise ship — in a lumbering kind of way. But the motor mounted on the tail pivots this blimp just like the motor on the back of a small boat.

And unlike many blimps, this one isn’t filled with helium but with hot air. Helium is a lot more costly.

But what’s really different is the blimp’s structure. Long, flexible, aluminum tubes run the length of the ship, and open and fold like an umbrella. Tents use the same technology.

“We didn’t invent the tension membrane structure, but we are the first ones to use it on a blimp,” Nachbar says.

Original: craschworks - comments