I Went on a Blimp

Metaphorically and physically drifting away from the hellscape.

Hi,

With the United States of America currently going down in a giant ball of flames like the Hindenburg disaster, it seemed like a good idea to get on a blimp.

That line is basically meaningless, but it sounded good in my head so I went with it as an opener.

In all truth, I wanted to do something fun.

I spend a lot of my time occupied with terrible people doing terrible things. It never used to be this way. I think it started with Tickled, discovering all these young people being harassed by a New York millionaire. I dove in headfirst, getting sued once and then twice in America — but along the way finding immense satisfaction in the idea that telling a story could create real change in the world. Maybe the bad guys didn’t always get to win.

Then there was the weekend spent with Pablo Escobar’s hitman, the five years with a sociopathic narcissist (who dragged me through the New Zealand court system this time), the many thousands of words written about the abuse dished out by Arise church, and all the other reporting on various assholes that I do here on Webworm (thanks to you, one of my direct backers).

Someone told me once that one of the package deals with ADHD is “a strong sense of justice”, which with me feels like it checks out.

And so, for once, I wanted to use my platform to do something fun.

No justice.

No bad guys.

Just blimp.

To not just metaphorically drift away from this godforsaken place, but to physically drift into the air buoyed by 300,000 cubic feet of helium gas.

I’ve always wanted to go in a blimp, charmed by the Duff blimp throughout most of my youth. But it turns out that blimps are exceedingly difficult to get on. From what I can tell, there are only about 25 blimps left on planet earth, and they’re not exactly easy to access.

Originally invented to patrol the air during World War I, the American Navy became particularly big fans during World War II — the slow, steady and maneuverable vessel able to see what the ships could not. Goodyear built over 150 blimps for this exact purpose. Blimps were big.

A “war escort” blimp in 1945.

They were flirted with as a form of mass public transportation — a kind of bus in the air — but the Hindenburg Disaster was pretty bad PR for that idea. And for blimps in general.

The German blimp was carrying 97 people when it went up in flames at around 7.25pm while attempting to land in New Jersey. 13 passengers died, along with 22 crew members. Most of the survivors were in pretty bad shape, all that burning gas also burning most of their skin off.

So here in 2025, it’s really hard to get on a blimp.

Then I saw that this year marked the 100th anniversary of the Goodyear blimp — and I got an idea. The blimp may have been a terrible idea for public transport, and drones did away with its use in surveillance, but advertising meant that some blimps were still available. Here in America they had the “DirecTV blimp” and the “MetLife blimp” — but there was no denying the Goodyear Blimp reigned supreme. And this year it was having a party.

And so I sent an email to Goodyear asking if I could go on a ride and learn about blimps. That I wanted to celebrate their 100 years of blimping.

I told them I’d share some photos of the experience with my readers, and record some audio for the podcast. I told them about some of my other work, attempting to grab their attention. And, for whatever reason, the plan worked. They said: “Yes.”

You can’t pay to ride this blimp. There are no tickets. This was insane.

And so at 3pm yesterday, I went to meet the blimp.

As it landed, I realised how weird it was. This giant mass of helium dwarfing the carriage underneath, a couple of stubby propellers off to each side, all balancing on a tiny wheel that had me imagining the world’s weirdest unicycle.

After some technical checks and a pilot swap, I clambered up a small ladder to get inside. They’d weighed me earlier, needing to know exactly how much extra weight was coming on board. This would factor into calculations over ballasts and helium, heights and speed.

“We’re constantly going ‘how warm are we now?’ ‘How warm are we planning to be once we’re up flying?’ ‘Once it cools down tonight?’ ‘What’s our landing weight going to be? We can take off and we can burn fuel for six hours and we can actually land heavier than when we took off,” says Adam, one of three pilots on board.

Inside it felt more bus than plane — I think because of the giant windows. Once you’re inside, you tend to forget the near-football field sized balloon above your head.

And yeah — we lifted off. This is “Doc” who’s been flying the Goodyear blimp for almost 20 years — alarmingly not behind the controls. Luckily there’s a co-pilot hidden behind his arm. I think. I am only noticing this now. Good God.

The views of this vast mess of a city — and the ocean out to the west — were spectacular, our shadow a reminder of how unusual this vessel was; a whale drifting through the sky.

I found out a lot of things on my flight, like that there are more astronauts on planet earth than there are blimp pilots. Perhaps less people aspire to pilot a blimp than a NASA rocket or SpaceX ego-trip, or maybe it’s the fact you have to put in an extra 250 hours training on top of your commercial pilot’s licence to fly one. Maybe it’s the lack of blimps. Maybe it’s those images of Hindenburg.

I learnt that the Goodyear blimp can travel 117 km (73 miles) a day and can fly to about 10,000 feet — although we stuck to about 1000. I learn that on cross-country trips there’s a support team that travels by road, allowing the blimp to land and dock.

I also learnt that you can take a shit on the blimp if you are so inclined.

I won’t be revealing if I did or not.

And, when it was all over, I learnt a shocking shocker.

That technically, the Goodyear blimp is not a blimp, but an “airship”. A blimp can be deflated at the end of the day, whereas this thing has a solid structure and frame.

Tomato, tomato.

I rode a fucking blimp and I am glad I had my fun and now it’s back into the trenches with the assholes.

David.

The 1925 “Pilgrim”

The 2025 “Wingfoot Three”