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I graduated from Kent State in 2003 and, uh, after working for a couple different companies,
was looking for something around the area. Most of my family is in Northeast Ohio so,
uh, applied for a few different places, one of them being here. I saw this job pop up
and, uh, I thought what and excellent opportunity and, uh, haven't looked back since.
Well, I started at Kent in 1999, I started flying in 2000 and worked my way through the
flight program which I really enjoyed because it wasn't something that I initially thought
that I would do. Uh, but being able to get the hands-on experience at Kent in the airplanes
almost right away, uh, was something that really catches your attention, you know, it's
fun. In between classes you get to go fly.
As far as flying the blimp goes, low and slow, it's it's great. You get to see everything,
you know, it's it's a little more challenging, you know, you have to work with the weather
and there's a lot of science involved with the helium, you know, the helium expands,
contracts, gets heavier, lighter.
It's more like flying a boat than an airplane or a helicopter. Uh, The way that it feels
and reacts, it's very slow, back and forth movements. You, you don't have turbulence
like you would in an airplane, sort of picks the blimp up and then drops it up and down
so you really are like a boat on the ocean.
An airplace would have a control yoke so another difference with the blimp is we have a wheelchair.
It almost looks like a, you know, it almost looks like a wheelchair but it's a wheel on
the ground. And the reason is we're moving a large surface a very long way and it's literally
cables and pullies, there's no hydraulic assistance or anything so to give us the mechanical advantage,
uh, we use a wheel and we can roll that wheel around about 3 times each way. Um, if we were
to use a control yoke, it wouldn't move far enough and it would really wear you out flying.
In the airship, you don't miss anything going by. Like you said, you're moving at 30, 40,
50 miles and hour max. You're only a thousand feet above the ground so you can see people
waving to you and you can wave back and they can see you and uh, it's an advertising tool,
we're here to sell tires so the more people that we, uh, are visible to during the day
the better off we are.
One of the unique aspects about being the camera operator with the airship is you get
to, you get to travel a lot, do a lot of the bigger events, uh, last year I did a number
of Ohio State football games, uh, did the Kentucky Derby and The Preakness.
Everybody here, mechanics, uh, heavvy duty mechanics and electronics technicians, we're
all a part of the crew first so we help operate the airship, uh, take it in and out of the
hangar, uh, we also help land the ship, help launch the ship and daily cleaning and maintenance
of the airship.
When I'm not flying I'm helping catch the airship. I'm helping, you know, the yellow
paint on the side of the airship, I help paint that from an aerial lift, you know, I've worked
on top of the airship, you know, with a chair and, um, from the ceiling.
It takes a minimum of 12 guys to get it in and out of the hangar. It takes a minimum
of 13, uh, we usually like to have about 16, to operate it outside. The reason for that
is because at the nose of the ship we have two lines that come down and when we're flying,
sitting on the ground, we rely on our crew guys on either side to keep us pointed into
the wind, uh, the pilot helps them out a little bit. We're in radio contact via our headsets
and intercoms with the crew chief who stands in front of the airship, uh, we can talk back
and forth to him about where we wanna go and direction, the wind, uh, the weight of the
airship and things like that which are very important. And then he uses hand signals to
communicate with the other 13 plus guys on the ground, uh, so it's a huge coordinated
effort from the minute you take it outta here, um, to take offs and landings. When we come
down, those guys line up and give us direction of wind, idea of the direction of wind and
we land the ship right to the crew. They run out and grab those nose lines so you have
a lot of guys, it's about the only aircraft you towards as it lands instead of running
away from. Uh, but it's a very, uh, team effort to get the thing up and down safely.