What do you
call the thing hanging under a blimp where the people ride? As I found
out this week, it’s called a car. I am using this fact as an excuse to bring
a blimp into The Garage, since we are all about the cars.
This is ‘CCO
reporter Heather Brown standing in front of the MetLife blimp called “Snoopy
Two”. It is town to help with live TV coverage of the PGA
championship. Heather figured out how to get a ride for a TV story, and I
was asked to come along ... If I would shoot said
TV Story.I learned Snoopy Two (just like her
sister ship Snoopy One) gets lift from 69,000 cubic feet of helium, and forward
thrust from a pair of aircraft
four-cylinder
Rotax. engines.
When
pilot Charlie Smith opened the throttles on those Rotax engines, Snoopy Two
accelerated like, well, let’s be honest, Heather could have out-accelerated
the blimp on her motor scooter.
However, while a blimp (or
airship, either term is correct) travels at a scooter-like 40 miles an hour, it
does so 1,000 feet in the air, which makes it the best sight-seeing platform
possible. When Charlie needs to hold position during golf coverage, he
puts the nose to the wind and throttles back the engines until the ground stops
moving.
There is no air conditioning in Snoopy Two, because
weight is a real concern in a lighter-than-air ship, so it is was a window-down
ride. It is pretty noisy inside the car, since it is not insulated, so
headphones (with intercom) allow pilot and passengers to
communicate.
The fact that
Charlie the pilot shares a first name with Peanuts creator Charles Schulz and
Peanuts star Charlie Brown is funny ... when the back wall of the car has a
mural of the Peanuts gang. And by the way, the big lump on the top of my
head is the extra-thick padding of the airship headset ... I don’t have that
much hair.
Check out
Heather Brown's blog for more on the amazing blimp ride.
