Are you an NBA, NHL, NFL, etc. arena blimp operator?

[Kelly W]

Hi Guys,

After meeting one or two blimp guys for North American hockey / basketball / football teams, I thought it might be interesting to see just how many NBA, NHL, NFL, etc. blimp operators were in here? It couldn't hurt for each of us to share any tips or tricks we've learned in an effort to be more reliable, put on a better show for the crowd, etc.

I'm one of a few guys flying a 28ft long whale-shaped blimp for the Vancouver Canucks NHL team. This blimp has a pair of Astro 35 motors and 12x5 props for main fans, shrouded and meshed for safety. They're each driven by Pegasus 35 speed controller with a 12-cell 2400mAh Ni-Cad pack. It's got bags of thrust if you need it... Centre elevator trim thrusts air down and slightly back, while forward elevator rotates ~180 deg to suck the blimp down, and full back on the elevator stick is brakes/reverse with the fans blowing straight ahead. This seems like a pretty common setup. The aileron axis is used for dropping prizes, with right stick loading and left for dropping, and using huge exponential to make it almost a binary operation. The yaw axis is an Astro 05 motor with a 9x5 prop, and driven by a 7.2 volt 2400 mAh pack. It turns great when you want to got to the right, but left is a bit challenging due to the prop running backwards... :rolleyes:

I started flying late last season and I'm having a tonne of fun with it since I'm pretty much a die hard hockey fan... We dock the 'orca' in the rafters at one end of the rink, dropping down a few minutes into the intermission, completing one circuit around the lower bowl while dropping prizes in envelopes, then playing around above the ice and docking back in the rafters when the cleaning crew is finished. The 2 challenges are getting around the far end where you need to fly LOW since its heavily obscured by the score clock, later followed by the final approach to the docking area in the rafters. Having flown a bunch now, its interesting to see how the air conditioning causes distinct gust and drafts in certain areas, and changing in intensity when the crowd is present and the A/C is on full.

There are 3 regular operators here, and a spare on call since 2 of the 3 need to be at every game. We usually rotate duties but the 1st operator is the pilot, standing at the bottom of the 2nd seating level in a wheelchair area. The 2nd operator on a given night is on catwalk duty, where he's largely responsible for changing batteries, switching it on/off, loading prize envelopes, testing the system prior to release, and aiding in the release and docking procedure.

One thing I'd like to work on for a future season is adding a wireless 'blimp cam' to the whale, and getting the video feed piped through to the scoreboard. If any of you have experience here, I'd love to hear about it! They tried it here a few years ago and the interference was too much to use it in the game. Currently I think the lighting may be a challenge, but that's not insurmountable if the rest of the system works out well. The hardware's gotten much better now, so I'm curious if anyone here has any experience.

Aside from the camera, I'd like to know a little information about your blimp, is it a weird (non aerodynamic?) shape, how large it is, what team(s) you fly for, what the seating capacity of the stadium is, where you dock it during the game, and whatever else you think might be worth sharing.

Overall, I enjoy having something to fly in the winter season since our R/C club is practically below the water line whenever it rains. I tend to stick with speedy prop planes and the odd jet in the summer, so this is quite the change of pace, but its a whole new challenge on its own. The weirdest thing to get use to was that every other R/C scenario has you trained to stay as far away from people as possible, while the whole intent of this is to stay just above them and out of reach...

So, now that I've gotten things started, lets hear from some of the other guys... :D
Kelly.

[Majortomski]

I flew for the Oklahoma City Blazers CHL team from 1998 till January of this year.

The blimps were like the one in my avatar. The bag was a 13 foot outdoor teathered bag from westcoast blimps. We've had 3 gondola configurations, a prototype in a stick and tissue kinda configuration. preproduction solid balsa with monocoat covering and an 0.040 thick vac formed styrene production version. I made the plug for the vac version. Design goals were to keep it as simple as possible. Ended up in the configuration that most of us have. The main fans on the gondola rotate almost 180 degrees and only thrust forward, the tilt gives about 20 degrees aft and up to back away from an object/fan. There's tail rotor for steering. We used stock rc car battery packs, moved up to sub C nickle metal hydrides in the later seasons but still in a stock 6 pack configuration. Motors were right from HL graupner speed 400s turing wood 6-3 props in shrouds. Usually get 2 seasons of flying out of each motor.

Like to fly with two pilots switching out, but have done 3 seasons by myself. We fly out of the staging area where the zamboni is parked we liked to land on the ice and taxi through the door, but could also hover down in the opening if the door was already closed.

I loved flying early when the crowd was just coming in. Little kids would put their arms up like they'd want to hold the blimp. so you fly over too them, and at about 2 lengths away from them they realize the blimp was the size of a small car and they ususally burry their heads in mom/dads shoulder.

[tomp999]

I see one of those 13ft arena blimps on eBay right now (like Major Tom's avatar). Looks like it was a Budweiser blimp (king of beers still printed on the tail fin)
Only 600 bucks!

http://cgi.ebay.com/BLIMP-Arena-13-ft-Helium-REMOTE-CONTROL-NR_W0QQitemZ200042363589QQihZ010QQcategoryZ2563QQr dZ1QQcmdZViewItem

[fly4food18]

I Fly the blimp for the Fresno Falcons Hockey team. The team is in the ECHL. I have been doing it for 5 years now off and on. My blimp is 12-13ft long and i use 3 280 motors for control. the blimp came with a hitec 4 channel radio, i up graded it to a 6 channel now. I am able to make 5 drops of coupons on the people each flight. I run the blimp by myself and try to make all 36 game each season. I would love to e-mail any one who flies blimps. Please feel free to e-mail me.

Thanks
Brian

fly4food18@yahoo.com

[Yimmy]

Majortomski - You might have met my g/f when she worked for the blazers. Evka. After she came back from the blazers I got fly for the Colorado Eagles. We fly two 13ft blimps dropping prizes in the stands.

[blimppilot]

I have floan blimps here in Minnesota since 1989 for the NBA Timberwolves, NFL Vikings, MLB Twins, IHL Moose, and U of M Football. We have blimps in the TargetCenter(Basketball) and the HHH Metrodome (Football & baseball) and the Civic Center (Hockey) blimps have ranged from 13 foot (original Aerostar prototype) to 23 foot blimps and 19 foot flying Target dog. all were made by Aerostar and some have beem modified a bit. Current 15 foot blimp was upgraded from speed 400 & 6x4 props to Axi brushless and 2 9x6 props on each motor - Gotta love more power

how many of you have the large spring atached to a non centering servo? I invented it!!

[Brad Larsen]

I flew 3 times for the Sonics. It was both a hassle and some fun.

Brad

[Yimmy]

Majortomski -- Tell Mike that Evka says hello. Thanks.

[Majortomski]

Sorry since I sold the business, I don't go down to the Blazers games.

[dogon1013]

I just started flying for the Orlando Magic. I'm still learning but I can fly safely around and know where the downdrafts are and how to get thru them.

The blimp size and power system sounds almost exactly the same as yours (the Orca), but the blimp is a traditional style. I know a couple of mods were done to it. the cup rotation system was changed to be a non-centering system. (push up, and the cups rotate until you center the stick). This took some getting used to but makes it easy to keep the same altitude. The tail motor prop was replaced with a hand-made wooden prop, that does not have a prefered direction, so that both right and left turns have the same thrust.

We have one small issue, the blimp seems to pendulum some, during normal flight, not sure if this can be fixed, but it's not really a big deal, but it does look strange.

[Blimpman]

Do you know Rob from Bob's Hobby?
He was going to fly that blimp but I guess he decided not to.
Is the blimp advertising for the Orlando Sentinel?

[dogon1013]

Yea I know Rob, he has a new girlfriend, 2 jobs, and a young daughter. I suspect those are the reasons he couldn't fly the blimp. I rarely see him out at the flying field anymore.

the blimp is now advertising for Family Cellular. I got some pictures when we were practicing.

[Blimpman]

Who owns the blimp?

[dogon1013]

not 100% sure, but I believe the team owns the blimp.

[Guga]

We have one small issue, the blimp seems to pendulum some, during normal flight, not sure if this can be fixed, but it's not really a big deal, but it does look strange.

Dogon1013...
Try to put all your ballast as close to the envelope CG... or on the CG of the envelope... this will reduce pendulum... also go easy on the throtle... :cool:

If you got the ballast all scatered around the Envelope it is because either your gondola is to far forward on the envelope either or the Tail rottor is too heavy and too far to the rear... :rolleyes:

[dogon1013]

Thanks for the advise, but I am refering to a side to side pendulum (like a roll in an airplane), not a forward backwards pendulum. I was thinking that some "dihedral" in the main motors may help, just like dihedral in a plane helps stabilize a plane. the mains could be pointed in, towards the center a little, so the thrust goes outward some (maybe 5 degrees, max)

I (and another pilot) do think the gondola is too far forward though. It looks like it should be pretty much centered under the envelope's CG.

[Guga]

Dogon...
The answer to that... Roll pendulum... is: counter rotating motors and obviously props... :cool:
This will eliminate the imense torque these 2 brushless motors genererate each time you apply power... what makes your blimp to "Rock&Roll" ;)

[dogon1013]

that makes sense, counter rotating would be helpfull. (they are large Brushed motors). It just seems to roll during normal flying, maybe more when you give lots of power. Then it keeps rocking back and forth for a while.