bradley

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Hi
I have been flying a 11 foot long airship for our local hockey team in Prince George. This is our 5th season flying in a coliseum and dropping prizes on the crowd.

Anyone else out there doing anything similar?

I want to share experience and flight performance issues?
Thanks Brad

SDR-Hammer

Brad, I’ve seen that done at hockey events and kind of envy the guys doing it. Tell us how you got involved, do you get paid or do you do this gratis?

You surely must have stories too.

MajorTomski

Hello from the first corporate blimp driver in Oklahoma1

I designed and built our 13 foot blimp for the Oklahoma City Blazers Hockey team. We've been doing it for 4 years now. We have the option to drop ping pong balls but haven't been able to find a paying sponsor for that option for2 years now.

Tom OKC

bradley

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Hi Guys
We get paid. We asked when we started to have the payment donated to our Flying club. The arrangement we have this year is we take care of maintenance costs and we get to keep the difference. Maintenance this year is at $600 and donation will be $700. Costs are Helium and a rotating Battery and motor replacement schedule (PM).

I originally got involved by a call from the team. The Blimp manufacturer does recommend looking for staff at local RC flying Clubs. I am an instructor with our club and my contact info was at the local hobby shops. One thing led to another than I was there. They asked me to put a team together so that we had full coverage and backup flyers.
It first it sounds glamorous….it is not. It is fun but it is really about doing as you are told when you are told to do it. There are a ton of rules and restrictions. You have to love the sport you are watching. The guys that wanted to fly the blimp were gone in the first year. You have to like the sport and RC is the only way to make it work.
I have 2 other great flyers now and things run very smoothly these days. Smooth is important, crashing is not an option.

The advertising pays the bills. It is like a billboard sell the space put on the ad. It is actually pretty easy to do. Most sports teams are dealing with advertising space every day as part of there business.

I attached a couple of photos. The guy on the right is me and the left is 1 of my partners Scott.

Thanks Brad

bradley

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Tom
Do you have any details or pictures of the ping pong drop? That sounds like a great idea. We have a 2 position pin release for prizes. Usually the drop is prize envelopes but sometimes teddy bears and shirts. The ping pong ball idea is intriguing?
Brad

SDR-Hammer

Bradley, well I play hockey so getting to watch a hockey game (free) and fly R/C at the intermissions… could life get any better?

Our local semi-pro team has not used a blimp in many years. In fact I think it was another team/league at the time. I know your team came to you but do you have any suggestions for approaching a team with this idea?

Better yet, I wonder if the Red Wings need a blimp pilot? I’d drive to Detroit every home game for that.

MajorTomski

For starters a ping pong drop works better than heavy things because a dozen PP balls only weigh one ounce. you can buy silk screening machines that can print on the PP balls. We had the sponsors name and instructions that you MUST redeem the ball for a prise at the team's information stand. We didn't do this the first couple of games and all of the PPbals were heading off to the sponsors' stores, and he didn't tell his manager what to do with them. Once we relabeled them I had some thing like a 98% return rate.

I'm not going to tell you how I drop a dozen per flight but the basic concept is that a single servo has two pins, each one sticking off the end of the output arm. In the neutral position, both pins are blocking the delivery tube. In the drop position one pin blocks the rest of the balls from falling out and the other pin moves out of the way to let the first ball drop. In the LOAD position the opposite happens one pin blocks the drop tube completely and the other pin retracts to let one ball drop into the loading chamber.

Or I could just sell you one!

Tom

bradley

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MajorTomski

Thanks for the idea Tom. The tube isn't what I was thinking. That is very simple isn't it? Definitely the way to go I was thinking of a bomb drop sort of thing.
I haven't looked at the web page for the blimp manufacturer for a couple of years but I see they now offer a ping pong ball drop as an option.
I will approach the team about a conversion fro next season.
It may alleviate the biggest problem we have doing this. We have had constant complaints to the team about kids and sometimes adults trampling the other patrons during drops. Last month the some moron fell over a person in a wheelchair while following the blimp to a drop? The disabled person was hurt slightly and now we must avoid the whole area for drops. Maybe smaller drops and more frequently might make things calmer in the stands?

Thanks for the input
Brad

bradley

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SDR-Hammer
Yes we get free admission that is the good part. We fly during the flood at intermission.

Many Junior and NHL teams have airships. The NHL team closet to me is the Vancouver Canucks and they have a 25 foot Killer Whale shaped blimp. There are many of these out there.
I would approach the team of interest with as much info as possible. Blimp manufacture we used is Eye in the sky. There are several companies i understand. The fellow we dealt with is Glenn.
The web page is
http://www.eyeinsky.com/siteD/airshipPromo1.html
The actually have a picture of our blimp on the page. It is the one with the Cougar cat on the nose
Thanks Brad

R/C Skydiver

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HI Brad:
I have been flying a blimp for the Columbus Cottonmouths, a minor league hockey team in Columbus, Ga, for 8 years now. The first 6 yrs we flew an 11 ft blimp made by Aerostar in S.D. Would you believe Federal Express lost that blimp when it was being shipped back to the factory for repairs? Fortunately it was insured.The team then purchased a replacement 13' blimp from Mobile Airships and Blimps in Canada. Both had a spiral drop mechanism for dropping tickets provided by the sponsor. We punched a hole in each ticket, attached a paper clip to each one and dropped them one at a time all over the arena. We have dropped team pennants but the weight limited us to one each flight in addition to the tickets. We fly a pregame flight and flights between each period. The Pay? What pay! We do get a free meal and a few extra tickets when needed. It's a blast and we get to watch the game from any place in the arena. Two of us flew the Auburn College basketball game blimp for one game. We used a cardboard dump type device to drop many tickets at once. Twist the tickets and drop them from the ceiling. They "helicopted" down to the crowd. They love it. If you are interested, I can give you some comments about each blimp I have flown if you drop me an email.
Jim

bradley

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Interesting stuff Jim!!
Your supplier and ours are different but the blimps are identical if yours is the same as on their web page? I mean absolutely identical down to the last screw? I wonder if both companies buy from the same place? Our supplier told me that they make them but now I wonder?

Have you had connector problems with the Tamiya ends they used? We converted to Dean’s ultras, nice connectors. We had 2 failures due to tamiya plug problems.

I have been twisting the prize envelopes for a long time. They fall slower and much more accurately. A regular envelope will sometimes hit the ice even if you are 30 feet in from the ice.

Every year our Helium leakage rates increase slightly. No apparent holes are found but leakage is there. This is the end of our 5th season. My thinking is the bag need to be replaced? What do you think?

No Pay…..HA!! Well it is really a donation but we were originally offered pay. We are a fairly financially sound team. Corporate sponsors are plenty and they really pay us. Our blimp is covered in high paying ads. Isn’t yours?
After our first season I asked the blimp company if what they were paying us ($500 first year) was normal. They said it was average. Sorry Jim but unless your team is broke I would have to say you were way below average in compensation? Remember they are a business and advertising does have a cost. Don’t be afraid to ask!

We needed cash for our new flying field and this became a boom for our flying club. We are now flush with cash as a flying club. It fells nice to know we have a cushion of cash in case something comes up?

And yes I would appreciate and email about experience with different types?

bradley

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Jim
Ours uses Speed 280 motors. Have you ever thought of going to speed 300 or possibly even 400? Our HVAC units have a powerful airspeed that the little 280 barely can handle?
Brad

R/C Skydiver

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Brad:
We haven't had any mechanical problems with either blimp except for the trail fins getting beat up. Made new ones with foam core board. They worked great. We have never had a motor failure so we leave well enough alone. Don't need more speed as the arena is small. We also fly elec slo flyers over the ice while another pilot flys the blimp. One member made a small delta wing elec and he would loop the blimp while we held it in a hover. Crowd was amazed with the model. Forgot to mention that our r/c club and Hobbytown gets a verbal ad each time we fly.They also put the ad on the scoreboard. The hardest thing we have to do is to fly the blimp up to a catwalk in the ceiling to park until the next game. Have to dodge air condition exhaust vents, steel girders and ropes holding up nets. It's a real blast...especially when other blimp pilots are watchimg and offering advice!!!
The bags we had from Aerostar had a life of 5 yrs before bag replacement is necessary. Looses more helium each year. We stretched it to 6yrs!
Willsend email about differences in blimps.
Jim

bradley

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Hi Jim
We have had 2 electrical problems. One was a broken wire the other a pin from the Tamiya connector that slipped back and lost contact. Batteries and motors are replaced as preventative measures on a 2 year rotation schedule. This is preventive measure only. We have thought about bigger motors to counter wind conditions. The HVAC units change greatly in speed automaticaly; they are fully computerized and come on full with no notice.

We recently had a new incident. Last month a battery pack went flat after about 2 minutes of flight. Turns out the charger kicked out early. We have no indication on our charger to say how many MAH went in? The pack was extremely low after the pre-game warm up. It must have sensed the cell count incorrectly? Testing with my Robbe system showed a perfect pack after i brought it home?

We get script (mention) at every game as well........ And Pay too!!! I think you guys can get something from them. Don't say pay, Donation or assistance but not pay!
What is the scoop with Hobbytown? Are they on your team?

Our team is 3 pilots. 2 per game, fly one period launch the second period. The third is a backup and rotates in regularly. All 3 of us would often go together but we recently got a new manager for the team and they have restricted our passes now to 2 per game....cheap buggers!! We also have 2 backup members for launch. Sometimes everyone’s schedules are bad and we need them but it is rarely. Christmas and spring break are generally when schedules change.

How long did a large bottle of Helium last on that 6 year old blimp?
Thanks Brad

R/C Skydiver

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HI Brad:
The hockey team contacted HobbyTown after the blimp sales staff took their advice to start with a local hobby shop, The owner is a friend of mine so he called me to help him with the flying. Neither of us had ever flown a blimp before so off we went to blow it up and give it a try. It took a little getting used to for sure but we made it after many mistakes...like getting hung up on the air condition exhaust vents, forgetting to turn on the switch with the blimp too light, launched it and watched it float up into the rafters in the arena, flying too low when we had a pennent ready to drop. (a kid in the crowd jumped on his dad's back and pulled the whole thing into the crowd, etc, etc. Turned out the crowd was more interested in watching us get the blimp down instead of watching the game!!!---they actually cheered when we got it back!
It has been a fun and interesting 8 yrs. The first 4 yrs, the blimp was the largest profit maker for the team. It was leased at about $6500 per season and they charged $400 for each game to have up drop free tickets from the sponsor. Even with that money maker, the team has not had a profit in any of the 8 years. They said they would pay us to fly when they made a profit so we settled for the advertising for our club and HobbyTown. This is a football town and very few understand Hockey!
I should write a book about the trials and tribulations of blimp flying. See Ya!
Jim

bradley

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Hi Jim
Sounds like we were doing the same mistakes to the letter. I still can't believe the boners we pulled the first year. Things are smooth these days.

To bad about the financial situation of your team. Income is rarely a problem up here. Hockey is Canada!!!! Advertisers line up to give there money to the team......Literally. There is a waiting list for advertising space.
Thanks Brad

BarracudaHockey

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Our pilots down here dont get paid. They bought the thing without asking any advice then wern't sure what to do with it. I run the the scoreboard and the team GM saw my helo's in the back of my explorer on the way into the rink one night and hit me up for flying it. I told him no thanks but called the club here in Jax and got in touch with an instructor pilot. Turned out he had flown the big blimp they use in Atlanta at the football games a few times as a fill in and would be glad to do it. I give the club plugs on the pa now and then and he gets to bring his grand kids to the games, he's a hockey fan too so it worked out for everyone.

I have flown the thing a couple times just for kicks after practice and it was alot like a sail plane, where ya kinda figure out where its gonna go before it gets there and then start your turn in advance. We have the left/right prize drop which we use for dropping coupons to restruants and stuff. The thing carrys banners for one of the local law firms and I think they pick up the cost of the helium.

bradley

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Hi
Getting the blimp to fly is some what tricky. It is not a precision flying machine like a chopper or a Pattern Plane. However you quickly learn to stay ahead of it and due to the slow speed. They are actually easy to fly, just not accurately? I have taught other game staff to fly in minutes. The trouble is always been depth perception of the crowd and obstacles. Everyone had trouble with that. For a learning pilot, dropping the prizes off target was always a problem. The risk of a spectator getting too close to a propeller spinning at 8000 RPM has always worried me but that has never happened. We have gone into the crowd a few times (depth perception) and luckily nobody got hurt?
Depth perception accuracy took all of us months to learn well. Lots of prizes hit the ice or other inaccessible areas in the first year. I trained a new pilot last year. He did practice flights before game setups for 4 months before we let him fly during a game. Practice is the only way to get accuracy. I not sure about you guys but our team has zero patience for mistakes and get heck from management if it happens. The want a professional show period!!
I will bet you guys have had similar trouble?

The company that sold it to us did say some don't get paid other do. The amount we get paid is average according to him. It would really depend on the team’s fiancé by what I am reading here. We have 5 paying sponsors, I am not sure of they pay but It is reported from a reliable source to be several thousand per year?

wjones

Hello everyone!

Wil,
I make, and fly blimps Ck out the pic. Ive been flying and making blimps for the pass 4 years. Lots of fun! Just got my web page up and running. ck it out! www.myblimps.com lots of work to do on it, but I do have one, with is a good thing. I hope this will help me make more money. You can make good money if you do it right. Ive had free and 100.00 weekend, but Ive also have had 600.00 weekends. I do it all for fun. making money is great, but for me I love flying my blimps. You can see my blimp and my Remax balloon flying at www.Southernballoonworks.com Tom, the owner of Southernballoon works has given me lots of help. If your looking for blimps ck out the web page.

Thx, Wil

bradley

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Hi
You know i am amazed at how many of these appear to be out there?
thanks for the links
Brad

bradley

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Hi
an important issue came at last nights game. Our new team business manager is concerned about complaints about the blimp. When prizes get dropped people have a tendency to fall over themselves to get them. Complaints and minor injuries have occurred constantly.
Has anyone else had similar circumstances? We need possible solutions ASAP as the team has indicated that they probably will not continue next year due to this problem?
Help
Brad

wjones

NO! never had that problem, hope not to have that problem. what are you dropping?

Thx, Wil

smokingcrater

Here are some of the blimps our university [link=http://learn.aero.und.edu/htmlez/pages.asp?PageID=366]RC Club[/link] flies. We have home made drop mechanisms on two of the blimps that are used fairly often. not sure of the size, the white ones are around the 11 foot range, the hotdog is larger, 20 ft maybe... completely volunteer basis, but our group gets paid.

(and [link=http://here]http://theralph.com/new2/Arena_Info_Section/Arena_Info_Main.htm[/link] is where we fly...)

bradley

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Envelopes.
I have never heard the complaint directly either but the Team office gets complaints all the time. The main sponsor has also had complaints (This is new). We have tried to fly to center ice and then directly into sections so kids can not follow the blimp. The biggest complaint so far has been kids running over seated patrons?

we have tried announcement's to the parents not to let the kids run in the sections? no difference. Each tunnel has a volunteer, i always thought that they could help control running kids in their section? Maybe? Problem is that The average age of the ushers is damn near dead....so i am not sure if that works?
Any ideas
Brad

bradley

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rkramer
Does you team ever get complaints?
Thanks Brad