this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2023
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I'll bet I'm the only person here who's ridden on a blimp? Back in the late 80s the Slice (a defunct soft drink) blimp let you pay a couple hundred bucks and took off from the Oakland airport, floated out over the SF bay and over the golden gate bridge, and returned to the airport, where it was caught rather than landed. Pretty fun.
And that's my blimp story. See if you can top it.
My parents went up on one of the good year ones that's based in Florida. I can't remember how exactly it came to be - my dad operated on somebody who either was a blimp pilot or otherwise had an in, and then they got to go up. Apparently it was just an insanely cool experience.
Explain this bit please. Blimps don't come to a controlled stop like every other vehicle in existence?
From my experience (watched blimps land at a local airport a few times as a kid) they don't really land so much as hover near the ground. When they get close enough to the ground, there are mooring lines that come off the front of the blimp. The ground crew will grab them as the blimp drifts slowly in, and tie the blimp down, which is kinda like catching the blimp. IDK if the OP was referring to something different though. I've only seen Goodyear blimps.
I just watched a season of Big Brother where a reward was getting to ride in the Goodyear blimp. When it landed, there was a group of like 10-15 people that had these ropes or cables and they kind of just catch the blimp as it slowly lands. Obviously the pilot brings it to a crawl but the ground team was pulling/directing it where it was going to land.
As someone below said, the blimp drops low to the ground and then about a dozen guys grab onto the lines and pull it down and tie it to the ground. And that's how a blimp "lands".