Blimp Pilots, Sept. 18, 2024

Blimp Pilots
September 18th, 2024

This story is a sequel to the previous “Sheep” story about the salvage and repair of the Goodyear blimp in England in the 1970s.

My boss, Mac, at Kenmore Air Harbor, would tell John and I stories from Mac’s interesting earlier aviation mechanic career. The three of us worked the swing shift from 4:30 PM to 1 AM and after 9 PM we had the hangar and office to ourselves at the seaplane base.

Mac had told us the story of how his Texas crew of mechanics was sent by Goodyear to salvage and repair the crashed UK Goodyear blimp that blew away in a storm and landed on a barn. This damaged the blimp and literally scared all the dairy cows to death.

The damaged blimp was trucked to an old WWI dirigible hangar. Mac told us that the hangar was HUGE! The blimp looked like a toy inside of it.

There were old wooden ladders in the hangar 80’ or more high. These ladders had been stolen from Germany after WWI as war reparations. Mac told us that the ladders were well made and the Texan and British mechanics used them to dope and paint the Goodyear blimp once they’d repaired it and inflated it again.

Mac also told us that the old dirigible hangar was haunted, but I’ll skip those stories for now.

After the Goodyear blimp was repaired, a British Goodyear test pilot flew it. This British pilot was a real pompous ass. He was always putting down the Texans as “Rebellious colonists.” The British pilot would demand this and that. He was very critical of the Texans’ work.

So, Mac and his fellow Texan mechanics hatched a plot. They made friends with the British blimp pilot. They acted like serfs before his august British pilot majesty.

Then, the Texans asked the British pilot to join them in town for drinks on a Saturday night.

Oh, they were all having a high time. The Texans spiked the British pilot’s drinks with 190-proof Everclear grain alcohol that they’d brought from Texas.

Soon enough, the blimp pilot passed out. The Texans put him in a cab, naked. They paid the taxi driver well and told him to take the naked pilot outside of town to a field and dump him there.

It was a warm summer night of 70F with no rain.

The next morning dawned bright and clear. The naked blimp pilot woke up in the field and stumbled to a farmhouse for aid.

The following Monday, the British blimp pilot was a different man. He never gave the Texans any shit after that.

…

Back in Texas, Mac told us that they had a similar problem with an arrogant American blimp pilot. Again, this guy kept giving the mechanics a hard time.

The mechanics again hatched a plot. They hired 5 beautiful hookers. The mechanics gave them tickets for a free blimp ride on the Goodyear blimp with the dastardly American blimp pilot.

The girls were very excited. They’d never been on a blimp before and the idea of servicing the pilot in a blimp would be a novel experience.

Mac said that the pilot was happy to see the five pretty girls. They all climbed into the gondola under the blimp and took off.

The blimp took off in a steady upward direction until, suddenly, the blimp started going up and down and side to side as if it were out of control.

This went on for half an hour.

When the blimp landed, the pilot had a huge grin on his face. He never gave the mechanics any shit after that.

TJM