Awesome Blimps

If you visit Normandy, France, 60 euros will give you the chance to float off the ground strapped to your own personal blimp. Each blimp is filled with about 70,000 liters of helium and has a harness and wings for controlling flight. Tom Scott visited Aéroplume Écausseville to take the low-altitude flight inside of an aircraft hangar.

Here’s another nifty wood model kit from Nashville artist 1Man1Garage. This laser-cut wood kit comes with everything you need to build a 14″ long zeppelin model, inspired by a 1929 model flown by England’s Royal Air Force.

Designed by LEGO Ideas 10K Club Member BrickHammer, this wondrous 2720-piece flying machine combines pirate-themed elements, steampunk aesthetics, and a splash of color. Despite the pirate ship looks, its creator says it’s a flying research vessel with defensive cannons to take on space pirates.

While helicopter skiing has become quite popular, this is the first time we’ve ever seen skiers dropped from a zeppelin. In this clip, adrenaline junkies Stefan Ager, Andreas Gumpenberger, and Fabian Lentsch each rappelled from a snow white blimp over the German Alps to kick off their run.

Footage from a Discovery program which documented the Piasecki PA97 Helistat, an experimental logging blimp, which used an ungainly configuration of four helicopters to lift it off the ground. Just looking at the thing, it seemed like a bad idea… and it was.