Not Just a Gasbag

Art, Garett108, asks what is the difference between a Blimp and a Zeppelin.

A Blimp is limp. It is a bag of air with a helium balloon inside.  The Blimp has an air scoop to keep it filled with air when it is flying.  When it is parked it needs a blower to keep it inflated. It has no framework to hold its shape.

A Zeppelin is a dirigible, having a rigid frame to hold the covering. Inside the Zeppelin are bags of hydrogen.

The Blimp goes up and down by changing the air pressure inside the bag of air.  If it increases the air pressure, it squeezes the helium into a smaller space and makes it less buoyant, and the Blimp goes down.  If it decreases the air pressure, the helium expands, become more buoyant and the Blimp goes up.

The Zeppelin goes up by dropping ballast, usually water, and becoming lighter than air.  I don't know how it comes down.  It is a good thing I am not driving a Zeppelin because we would have to stay up there.  Maybe they valve off hydrogen, it is cheaper than helium.

You didn't ask, but a hot air balloon is an airbag too, like a Blimp, using a blower to get filled up.  Then a propane burner heats the air and it becomes more buoyant and rises.  As the air cools the balloon comes down and the burner is lit to warm the air and keep the balloon up.  If you were taught not to play with fire, you wouldn't like flying a hot air balloon.  You cant steer a hot air balloon and you go where it wants to go which is whichever way the wind is blowing. I rode in a hot air balloon once but it was securely tethered to a winch which kept us from blowing away and and which brought us safely back to earth at the same spot from which we started.

I think soaring would be the most fun of all.  In soaring you use rising air currents to  keep you aloft.  I have flown a sail plane for about fifteen minutes.  We used a tow plane to tow us into the air, then we cut loose and glided.  It was quiet and smooth and fun. We had no air currents to keep us aloft so we merely glided back to airport and landed.

Birds fly because they have hollow bones and feathers. We could probably fly too if we had hollow bones.

Bees are aerodynamically incapable of flight, but they don't know that, so they keep flying anyway.

I hope I have answered your question.

Tags: flight

I Promised You a Rose Garden - Full Cycle

   Yesterday was the day. All the roses in the rose garden got cut back to about fourteen inches, for the winter.  That includes Twiggy.  We started following the Twiggy life cycle last February, when she was just a twig in the ground, and watched her grow, bloom, and re-bloom, and keep blossoming until yesterday 

   I didn't know it was going to happen.  I went out to the rose garden, and there was no garden there.  Just a stubble. It was a shock, and a bit depressing, but I know they'll be back and blooming next April.  I have the pictures to prove it.

   Jude, being on the inside courtyard, escaped the bushwhacker. She is blooming outside my door right now.

   Today I'll go and take the final picture in the Twiggy saga.

Tags: Roses

Volunteer

   Carlene asks "What was it like riding in a Blimp?"

   It was 73 yeas ago I was only 8, and I had never flown in anything before so my memory of that flight are hazy by some things remain.

   First.  You don't go up.  The ground goes down away from you. You stay the same, but objects on the ground around you, cars people, houses, get smaller.  People look like ants and cars look like toys, and you see the tops of houses, like model village.

   Second. I was able to navigate, or at least know where I was.  I looked out the picture window, you;re sitting in a lounge chair in front of a huge picture window, and I could follow streets with my eye right by to my block, miles away.  Of course Grandfather was sitting next to me and pointing things out.  The Blimp used to land in a lot next to the corner of La Brea and Wilshire in Los Angeles, just west of the La /Brea tar pits. With our eyes we could follow Wilshire Blvd to the intersection of Santa Monica Blvd, and follow Santa Monica to Pandora Street, and Pandora two blocks to Holman Ave. It was too far to pick out our house but I knew right where it was.

   I used to use this technique, following streets by eye, when flying my own airplane forty years later.

   The third impression that remains is the huge elevator control , the up and down wheel, that is beside the pilot's chair. I remember its being on the pilots left side, but pictures of blimps nowadays seem to show it on his right, between the pilot and co pilot.  Maybe the Volunteer had only one driver's seat.

   Of course I have been fond of Blimps ever since.  They are huge ungainly things, made gaudy by advertising signs. They are slow and require a large ground crew and can carry only a few passengers at a time./They are completely impractical in the twentieth century.

   I guess that makes them an Art Form.

   The story of Blimps is told wonderfully by former pilots and by the Goodyear Company on the Internet. 

Tags: Blimp, Goodyear Blimp

Am I Old?

Am I old?

I watched a movie at the first-ever drive-in movie.  I don't remember what the film was.  The drive-in was in West Los Angeles. They didn't even have car speakers.  The sound came from a huge loudspeaker on top of the screen.  People who lacked the admission price could park on a hill behand the theater and watch for free.

I rode in the fourth-ever Goodyear Blimp.  It was the Volunteer and they used to sell rides to the public.  It was a treat for my eighth birthday.

I saw televsion demonstrated in my Junior High in 1938. They had to darken the auditorium so we could see it.  The television camera hadn't been invented yet, so they transmitted the picture from a "flying spot" transmitter.  Look that up on Google.

I have had a computer since 1979.

There were no cam-corders, so aome friends and I made a high-school newsreel on a Keystone 8mm movie camera. We showed it in the auditorium and charged a dime. We made back the cost of the film on editions one and two, but we lost money on the third and the manager of the student store cancelled our project. It was a great run while it lasted.

Tags: antique road show

Orange Tree

It would drive you Easterners wild. In my almost-private courtyard is a huge orange tree, loaded with huge ripe oranges. And nobody picks 'em.

Most are too high for the senior residents to reach. So where does the kitchen staff get the oranges they serve in the dining room? The store.  It is easier.

So these gorgeous oranges go to waste.  They hang tantalizingly on the tree until they are too ripe to hold on. Then the fall into the courtyard, but it by then it is too late to enjoy them. The gardener scoops them up and throws them away

I enjoy the few I can reach fron my wheel chair.  It is a treat to have an orange tree of my very own, for my personal use.

Envy me, I relish in it.

Tags: A glut of oranges

December Blues

   Dave Burke, Wandering Dave, has given me the assignment of trying to keep him from having the December Blues while he is on the road this Christmas.  I accept the challenge.

   I won't be easy. The Christmas season has already started on television and in the malls and discount houses. This first week after Thanksgiving featured dozens of sitcoms trotting out their Christmas special re-runs. It can only get worse as December rolls on.  The specials are all written so they can have heart warming sentimental emotonal tags. Fine. But long before Christmas actually gets here our hearts are not warmed... they are warmed over.  Like the Thanksgiving turkey. Sentiment goes stale.

   Adding to the difficulty of keeping Dave fresh and up-beat during the season is the fact that I get a little "down" myself. Today, nothing seemed right. It was little things that bugged me, but they seemed to bunch up.

   My wheel chair jammed on a shoe, my tablemate is absent from the table for the fourth day, my table is protruding into the aisle today, other wheel chairs block the aisle, and worst of all. the menu consisted of chicken, again, and pasta, again, and green beans, again. Petty? Yes, I am.  Today.

   When you find yourself cranky and bothered by little "nothings", blame it on the December Blues.

   So, Dave, we have to begin by acknowledging that the things that are bothering us this next month are little things, and then finding the cheerfult thangs to rejoice in.  If our hearts are warmed-over instead of warmed, then we rejoice because they are being warmed and not attacked. Who would want a heart attack at Christmas? 

   We can learn to think like kids again, and love the excitment. Weren't those days beautiful? If the gift you find in your stocking is dreadful, look around.  There's a pony somewhere.

Tags: December Blues

Living in a Virtual World

I seem to be living in a virtual world these days.  As I exercise I goad myself to reach my daily goal with virtual rewards. I imagine I will reap some benefit if I make "four" miles on the rowing machine.  I am not really "rowing" and my reward is not real eithers.

Furthermore, I dream about walking again, and that makes me feel like I have really been walking.  My latest walking adventure I have posted in the Dream Depository. 

Wake up, Chuck.

Tags: Dream World