blimp

Crowd-controlled airship to fly at Winter Games

A crowd-controlled blimp created by students at Canada's Simon Frasier University is getting ready for its big date with visitors to the upcoming Winter Games.

Just over 3 feet long, the helium-filled WeBlimp is outfitted with a tiny camera that wirelessly transmits video back to a laptop in the "control room" of the two-room media installation. The little propeller-powered airship, created to explore crowd collaboration in the context of navigation, conceptually places observers inside its attached gondola by projecting images onto a wall-size screen and offering a bird's eye view from the blimp's perspective.

But … Read more

Become a blimp pilot

Blimp: The Flying Adventures is a blimp-piloting arcade game that has polished production values and gameplay similarities to both taxi and classic thrust-and-land games. Its interface makes great use of the iPhone and iPod Touch: you tilt your device left and right to control your blimp's pitch, and you tap a touch-screen button (again and again) with your right thumb for thrust. After the first few levels, you can also drop a limited supply of bombs with a left-thumb button.

In the game's sci-fi story, you play Captain Zed Pelin working for a merchant company on the planet … Read more

Boeing touts heli-blimp for heavy lifting

What do you get when you cross a blimp and a helicopter? One potential answer is the Skyhook JHL-40.

The JHL-40, mind you, is still essentially in the blueprints-and-artist's-renderings stage. It's an aircraft that Boeing and its partner Skyhook International are pitching as a short-haul commercial transport rig.

Boeing says that the neutral buoyancy of the JHL-40 would let it hoist and move far greater payloads than can be handled by existing rotorcraft. The aircraft, the companies say, should be able to lift a 40-ton sling load and then transport it 200 miles without refueling, a capacity that … Read more

Don't call it a blimp--it's an 'air yacht'

Something is in the air these days, quite literally, in the form of blimps. And we're not talking about MP3 speakers either.

Aeros, a company that produces modern-day dirigibles for military and civilian use, has developed a "private air yacht" that it hopes will revolutionize air travel. The "Aerocraft ML866" isn't necessarily built for speed but makes up for it with space and luxury appointments, including "a computerized office, videoconferencing capability, an advanced communications package, transformable interior, personal state room and a physical conference space," Gizmag says. The Aerocraft boasts an interior … Read more

The 'Zeppelin' speaker, sans Led

Ever since we were kids, Crave has always been fascinated with blimps. To this day we still idolize the dirigible, though the atrocious Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow did its best to ruin the image forever.

That's probably why we're partial to the "Zeppelin" from B&W Loudspeakers, the first of its kind for the iPod that's shaped like the airship of yesteryear. SCI FI Tech says the 2-foot-long system backs up its design with some impressive acoustic muscle--"five drivers including a 5-inch woofer, glass-fiber cones and those sweet tapered … Read more

Big Brother one step closer to floating eye in the sky

The U.S. government wants to build and deploy a huge stratospheric airship, three times the size of the Goodyear blimp, that is capable of spying on an entire city.

The idea is that the blimp, dubbed the "Integrated Sensor is Structure" (ISIS), would hover above the jet stream at 70,000 feet and use its giant, flexible radar antennae to acquire a "dynamic, detailed, real-time picture of all movement on or above the battlefield: friendly, neutral or enemy." And we thought surveillance satellites were sitting ducks.

One of the challenges has been to come up … Read more

The next Super Bowl blimp?

The guys and gals over at Goodyear will be shaking when they read this. The next Super Bowl may feature a far more interesting blimp if Air Genie gets the right people's attention.

Gear Factor picked up on this patent-pending dirigible called the Air Genie video airship.

The hybrid helium blimp has telescoping landing legs and a completely retractable cabin, so it appears as a perfect sphere when in flight. While it has television and radio broadcasting capabilities, it can also reflect its own surroundings to blend in.

Not only can it be "invisible," but it can … Read more

Finally: An affordable personal blimp

It could be the 21st-century version of the Sunday drive: Blow up the hot-air blimp, take it for a spin, then fold it up and put it away.

Of course, that's assuming you've got $200,000 liquefying your Tiffany money clip.

The Personal Blimp from Skyacht Aircraft made its maiden voyage in late October, and although the company calls it a blimp, it's essentially a steerable hot-air balloon. It utilizes hot air in place of helium and is propelled by electric motors.

Though the cost may seem high for a leisure activity, consider that the average helium … Read more