View from a blimp

Touring the town from 1,000 feet up.

By: Eileen Oldfield
   One of the last things Mark Finney, one of Horizon Blue Cross/Blue Shield’s blimp pilots, told me before I boarded the blimp at Readington’s Solberg Airport one morning last week was something I had hoped wasn’t obvious.
   "You look nervous," he said.
   Nervous? Only about getting sick out the side of a blimp. Though he wouldn’t be piloting on my ride, Capt. Finney compared flying on a blimp to sailing on a boat, with one major difference: you’re traveling on air rather than water. Otherwise, he says, the ride is similar. Of course, the blimp’s gondola seats only four people, including the pilot; and you can’t move around during the ride either.
   I’m sure water travel to air travel is an accurate analogy. Unfortunately, I’ve never been on a boat either, and, while I can swim, I haven’t quite mastered flying if anything goes wrong during a blimp ride. Suddenly, I’m very glad that I didn’t wear my Led Zeppelin T-shirt today.
   Once the landing crew has stopped the blimp — blimps do not have brakes; a landing crew grabs ropes on the sides of the blimps to bring it down — and I’ve buckled myself into my seat in the gondola, we’re ready to take off. The console, a mess of knobs, dials and meters, doesn’t have the steering-wheel structure I expected. I’m Terry Dillard’s first passenger for the day, and, once my headset is on, the ground crew releases the ropes. Capt. Dillard pulls the steering levers next to his seat, pushes the pedals with his feet, and the crew is getting tinier and tinier as we float up.
   "We’re up here for the summer," Capt. Dillard said as I craned my neck out the gondola window. "During the winter, we fly the down to Florida. Most people think we deflate the blimp and ship it down for the winter, but it’s actually cheaper to fly it down."
   My camera’s already out the window as Capt. Dillard explains the fuel dials and pressure dials on the control console, and tells me we’re cruising at 35 mph, at a height of about 1,000 feet.
   "If you ever want to cause a commotion, start cruising at about 300 feet in the air," he says. "Anything lower than 1,000 feet will get people worried."
   The trip from Readington to Manville takes about 15 minutes, although until I see the roof of Manville High School and Alexander Batcho Intermediate School, I have no idea where I am. My camera’s out the window again as Capt. Dillard steers toward what I think is Main Street.
   Flying over a town is incredibly different from driving through it — and it explains why I’m not exactly sure where Hillsborough is in relation to Manville, despite growing up in the area. Oddly enough, as we pass the Rustic Mall in Manville and hover along Amwell Road in Hillsborough, the construction sites in both towns seem bigger from up here. The exposed dirt and sand cuts across the grass; occasionally, a truck drives from one dirt pile to another or workers stop to talk to their colleagues. People and cars are more apparent from the blimp than from an airplane; you can see that black SUV park next to a bright yellow Volkswagen bug.
   Hints of haze hang in the air once we’ve finished the tour of Hillsborough. We turn back to Solberg Airport around 11 a.m.; it’s hotter than when we took off at 10, and it’s oppressively muggy too. A slight twinge in my left temple signals the start of an altitude headache, so I’m very happy when we’re over the airport’s backfield.
   "Blimps land better in fields than on airstrips," Capt. Dillard said. "With an airfield, we have to shut down the whole airport, which doesn’t make people too happy."
   When the blimp’s nose plunges down, and I’m looking at a particularly green patch of field, I’m very glad Capt. Finney warned me about how a blimp is landed.
   "We cut the motor to land," Capt. Finney said. "If there’s more than one rider, we have to keep the weight balanced so we don’t go airborne when people get off. It’s not a problem since it’s just you this time."
   The landing gear clunks out of the compartment under the engine shortly before the landing crew grabs the ropes to pull us down. The blimp barely thuds on the ground once we’re down, and we roll a few feet before stopping.
   "You did better than the last passenger," Capt. Finney said once I’m off the blimp. "The last passenger got sick on us."
   He’s right. I didn’t get sick. After this, boats should be nothing.