Getting carried away

Blimp ride around stadium has its ups and downs

Jim Baumbach

February 1, 2008

In an effort to see the trick plays the Giants and Patriots are working on, I asked the people at Goodyear to take me for a ride in their blimp.

Amazingly, they agreed.

Unfortunately, though, while we were up in the air, I wasn't exactly in a position to convince my pilot to take me to the top-secret practice fields. I was more focused on grasping my seat. Turns out they don't have seat belts in this blimp.

And you can open your window wide enough to jump out. Just like your car window.

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"See," my pilot said, "just like this."

I took one glance at him sticking his hand out his window - 1,600 feet above the ground - and that was enough proof for me. My window remained closed for our one-hour trip.

So why exactly was I in a blimp? I asked myself that question about 15 minutes into the flight, right when I started feeling queasy.

I reminded myself at that moment that the Goodyear blimp is as synonymous with the Super Bowl as the celebrity parties, commercials and the hype - and I had a responsibility to report back to you all about the Super Bowl.

Fortunately, my stomach then righted itself, too.

This year Goodyear is working with ESPN to provide aerial coverage of all things Phoenix. I tagged along yesterday as they shot video of University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale.

To sum up a ride in a blimp, think of it this way: The experience is absolutely nothing like flying in a plane, aside from the fact that you are in the air.

My pilot, Matthew St. John, explained it this way: "A blimp is like a submarine in the air." That wasn't his only ship reference. He also warned me to be careful boarding the blimp, because it never completely comes to a stop. "Think of it like boarding a boat," he said.

When the blimp came down to drop someone off and pick us up, it took more than 10 people to act as the anchors of the blimp. They all grabbed the ropes that had just been dropped from the blimp and held steady as I climbed the five-step ladder.

I sat shotgun, only because there was no other choice. There is a bench in the back of the blimp, but that's where the camera operator works.

There also is no steering wheel. The pilot's seat looks like a wheelchair; he controls the tilt of the blimp by pushing the wheel to his right forward to go down and backward to go up. There are two pedals at his feet to turn right and left.

Traveling at about 30 miles per hour, we reached University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale in about 20 minutes. St. John explained that we were "a few hundred feet higher than normal because there is an airport close to the stadium and we don't want to interfere."

I think you'll understand why I immediately looked left and right, just to double-check that we weren't "interfering" with their traffic.

The roof to the stadium was open and I could clearly see the scoreboard clock was running down. We circled the stadium several times, which felt exactly the way you'd expect it to.

Goodyear does this type of stadium filming so often that it actually owns its own equipment and has a staff of technicians. Television stations simply hire them to do the aerial footage and keep in radio contact with the pilot during live shots to explain what they're looking for.

Toward the end of the flight, St. John showed me a piece of the "envelope," which is what they call the outer ribbing of the blimp. It is so incredibly thin - as thin as your thinnest sock.

But St. John, perhaps sensing my immediate sense of concern, assured me that puncture holes in the blimp take a long while to have an effect on the helium. "It's like trying to drain a swimming pool with a straw," he said.

As we went in for our landing, St. John also mentioned that the next crew was headed to Scottsdale for a six-hour shift. Earlier I asked what happened if, uh, nature called. "There is a port-o-potty in the back," he said, "but if you use it, you have to clean it up. So you watch what you eat."

I'll stick to the press box.