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DOUGLAS COUNTY SENTINEL, October 20, 1995
Unique Airship to Hover Over World Series
Ball-shaped craft tuned up at local Stockmar Airfield
By Patrick Armstrong
Staff Writer
When the World Series starts Saturday in Atlanta, the baseball that fans see flying over Fulton County Stadium won't be one hit by Fred McGriff or Albert Belle.
A Canadian company will fly a ball-shaped airship that is neither blimp nor balloon around the stadium this weekend. Workers put the finishing touches on the craft Thursday at Stockmar Airfield in western Douglas County.
"We took a look around and said Atlanta is going to win it," said Hokan Colting of Toronto, the owner and pilot of the airship. We decided to take it down to Fulton County Stadium."
Colting is president of 21st Century Airships Inc. of Newmarket, Ontario, which built the prototype for the ship in 1991. The version that is here now has undergone several revisions, he said.
During the Series, the craft will be based at Charlie Brown Airport. The construction team set it up at Stockmar Airfield on Sunday and Monday and flew it Tuesday and Wednesday.
Colting said that the airship, which is painted like a baseball and has two exterior motors, can turn on a dime and can take off and land in a small area.
"They fly completely differently from a blimp," Hokan said. "They (cigar-shaped blimps) use a technology that's 70 to 80 years old and very expensive."
The airship is 43 feet in diameter and can hold 41,000 cubic feet of helium.
The next one that will be built will be 70 feet across, and "The volume goes up four times, so we can fly the pilot and 10 passengers," Colting said. The present model can carry a pilot and a passenger.
Colting said the maximum speed is 25 miles and hour, but the next one will do 40.
A layer of mylar separates the pilot's cabin which is inside the bottom of the ball, from the helium, Colting said. During flight, the engines pressurize the cabin, he said.
The ball itself is made from the same material used in bullet-proof vests, he said.
Colting said that the first time he landed the airship at an airfield near Toronto, a nearby airplane pilot radioed the tower to say that a ball-shaped craft was coming in without a pilot. When told it was an airship, he responded, "I know airships, and that's not an airship!" he said.
Stuart Muir, of 21st Century Airships in Ontario, loosens a knot in the mooring of a 43,000-cubic-foot airship replica of a baseball in a field at Stockmar Airport Thursday. The craft is a prototype for larger models and will be flown around Fulton County Stadium during the World Series this weekend.
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