Blue Angels here at work

[AzPilot]

LOL, i saw a simillar page years ago. too funny.

[RacerX]

Also found this account:

"That's the first blimp crash I can remember reading about. The curious thing is that the guy who wrote the story cautioned the fire department guys that the blimp was filled with helium, an inert gas, and that they should take precautionary measures. Maybe he just didn't want the big fire guys to get too close, breathe the gas, and then sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks.

I have had had the best job I believed possible, and now I have a memory only a selected few have ever had. In case you don't know Our XFL Spalding Blimp crashed in Oakland during a rainstorm, Caused by rain shorting out the rear ballonet valves, this isn't official yet, but being there I know what happened. With the valve stuck open, we needed to keep pressure in the ship by filling up the front ballonet, as you know, landing with a heavy nose is not a good thing, add wind, and you have disaster. The ship never came closer than than 150 yards to us and we were running as fast as possible to try and catch her, but she was just to far and too gone, after she hit, her landing gear and right engine were damaged, she proceeded with the wind away from us, and struck a plane sitting empty on the south side of the runway. At that point the pilots bailed out. After seeing the gondola tossed up in the air a good 50 feet, and a hole ripped in the envelope, I know the pilots did the right thing, At that point we < ground crew> were still a good 100 yards away, I saw Hunter, The pilot trying to pull the rip cord to the ship, which would have deflated the ship right there, but he couldn't get it to open, the other pilot Paul was trying as well with the other rip cord, there is one on each side of the ship, but he couldn't get it open as well, I saw the pilots pulling the cords until they just couldn't hold on any, at that point the ship was too light with out the weight of the pilots, she started to rise up. There was nothing anyone of us could do, We were still at least 100 yards away when the ship floated away, I met hunter halfway from the site, he had been running too, but away from the floating ship. He had a cut to his hand from the ropes, trying to pull the ripcord. We set him down on the ramp, and looked at the ship floating away. Joe, our crew chief then asked me to get the mast truck and meet him at monster.coms trailer, they had been massed next to us. And in fact everyone of their crew came running out to help us when they heard the distress call from our ship before landing, I Picked up Joe and we were following the ship, we could see it still floating at about 1500 ft, We took a left out of the airport instead of a right which would've put us on the 880 freeway, and saw the blimp floating farther away, at this point a police officer was behind us and Joe hopped out 2 ask him where to go, he knew what was going on and escorted us about 5 miles along a winding bay stretched road. I remember Joe being on the phone when he was saying, we lost sight of it, then all of a sudden, we saw it, Totally amazing seeing a 140 ft blimp on top of a restaurant. We proceeded to the site with the help of the Oakland police department and to our amazement; none was hurt, stunned, but not hurt. Before I got this job I remember seeing the Hindenburg disaster on TV, and thinking that's what all blimps do when they crash -- luckily, they don't. The fire department was on scene when we got there and proceeded to poke holes in the envelope to let the helium out, at that point my only concern was their safety, I let the fire chief know that that was helium we all saw venting, and they needed to use precautionary measures to combat it. This was problem the one event in my life I will always remember, certain details, smells, and fears. Thank God the crew is ok. Michael"

[AzPilot]

I wrote that!! seriously. Ive been looking for that too. Thanks!!

edit:
ps sorry for the thread hijack.

[Bengal65]

Nice, thanks for the pics. They should be down here pretty soon for the Houston Airshow. It's a big event at the Air Force Base with a lot of WWII stuff!

[petedz]

Great photos! This thread kicks ass!

[finnman]

I remember that.
Also
There was a small blimp at our Hayward Airport that got away some years back.
One guy grabbed the rope and it lifted him over a 100 ft till he let go.
SPLAT.
The blimp floated for a while till a helocopter used it rotor down wash to crash it.

If anybody ever wants a tour at UAL's Maintenance Base while visiting the bay area, let me know,
I'll be more than happy to show you around.
Finn

[hgsmith]

looks like a typical SanFran "IFR" Departure back to P-cola. I can't remember the last time I had VFR in KSFO

[finnman]

looks like a typical SanFran "IFR" Departure back to P-cola. I can't remember the last time I had VFR in KSFO

NAVY?

[Drsracing]

They're here every year for seafair, I always Blast VH

[hgsmith]

NAVY?

of course?

[finnman]

AMS3 China Lake, Calif 82-87
I worked on
A-4
A-6
A-7
F-18
OV-10
AV-8B
AH-1
Fun Place in the Desert
3-weeks sea duity on cats 1&2