Roger Long
The Goodyear Blimp was excellent in a flight over Cowes, a wonderful stable platform for filming.
Dave Mundy
Roger’s mention of the Goodyear blimp reminded me Maggie’s second general election day when the KA PSC unit spent the whole day over Central London in an airship. Powered by two Porsche engines it was the slowest Porsche ever!
We did lots of request shots for the News Archive e.g. Royal Albert Hall from the air, Buckingham Palace, route from Buckingham Palace to Houses of Parliament etc.
Best way to spend an election day ever!
Of course, my Olympus went along for the ride!
Mike Jordan
Nothing like rigging a big camera and lens in the Goodyear Airship in 1975.
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I did most of the Comms installation at Cardington.
One nasty moment during the tests was when the fan that was mains supplied to keep some controlling air pressure in the blimp failed. As a result, the whole thing started to drift up on its bow mooring rope and when I looked out, I was about 30ft from the ground and the stern was up in the air.
Happy days!
Peter Cook
The airship used for Maggie’s election was the British Airship Industries (Bond) Skyship 50.
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I flew in that but more frequently N2A, the Goodyear airship. Pope’s visit to London and Manchester and more notably “Live Aid”. It is amazing how on a hot day the gondola under a gas filled envelope (bloody great big sunshade) combined with a door off is fully air conditioned. With an aero engine a few feet away it was a challenge to hear (simplex) radio talkback. Probably only an engineering reply on the trusty Storno. The Pratt & Witneys admittedly were not as loud as Merlins but with no programme sound on “Live Aid” there was little clue to what was being played or where we were in a song. Fortunately when Elton John was on stage, the director was Tom Corcoran. Having worked with him a lot we had a good rapport and he actually directed me and we got some great shots on air timed remarkably well to the music! Of course we got used a lot on ‘Rocket Man’.
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Funny story on the A 500 shoot; a man from CAA came to inspect the camera installation for safety. He said that the gondola skin was not strong enough. The airship engineer said, "But it is made of Kevlar". CAA guy said, "What is Kevlar?". 15 -love. After he went back to the office to consult, we got approval. We flew and it was strong enough. Technically we had no problems with the Goodyear, but we battled all the time with the Porsche engine ignition giving us spiky interference on picture.
Mike Jordan
Ah!
A proper Wembley Stadium with all the scanners pushed down the side and a nice compact Radio Links rostrum on top of the lift shaft!
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