I’m scared of flying, but I flew in a blimp
DirecTV airship travels to South Florida to cover a sporting event.
The email, to many other people, would probably send a jolt of excitement through them. But for me, it sent chills up my spine.
“The DirecTV airship (blimp) is going to be in South Florida to cover a sporting event, and we are offering local media the opportunity to take a ride. Are you interested?” read the email from local AT&T spokeswoman Kelly Starling.
Sure, it was an opportunity to ride in a blimp — which, by the way, is a quantifiably cool offer. But it was a lot more than that.
The truth is, dear readers, that your humble Palm Beach Post transportation reporter is just a little afraid of flying.
It hasn’t always been that way. I used to be a confident flier.
Getting onto an airplane was no problem. My hand never shook as I buckled my seat belt. I would book window seats and then take photos through the airplane window and post them to Facebook when I landed. Flying was fun, a miracle, an opportunity to see the world from a different perspective.
Then a JetBlue airplane on which I was flying was struck by lightning last December. My confidence in flying was shattered. Though the pilots carried on with the flight, which left Boston and landed safely in Fort Lauderdale, I now have an irrational fear of a death that involves plummeting from the sky in a giant, fiery metal tube.
But that surely wouldn’t happen with my ride on the DirecTV blimp — would it?
I arrived bright and early Tuesday morning at North Perry Airport in Pembroke Pines with Palm Beach Post photographer Richard Graulich. Starling and blimp co-pilot Cesar Mendez greeted us in a silver van with “DirecTV” on the side, which took us to an open field at the airport where the blimp would land, dropping off WPTV reporter Charlie Keegan and picking us up.
As we waited for the airship, I confided in Mendez and Starling that I was nervous about the flight. “What scares you more,” Starling asked, “the take-off or the landing?”
“Neither,” I replied. “It’s the turbulence.” And that’s the truth. I’m fine with the roller-coaster feeling — when I’m on a roller coaster. But it has no business on a plane.
Mendez smiled. “Don’t worry,” he said. “This is much smoother.”
Still, my stomach flipped as I stepped up the stairs into the gondola attached to the bottom of the blimp. I smiled at Charlie. “How was it?” I asked, my head starting to do that swimming thing it does when I’m getting on a plane. “Great!” he yelled over the sound of the engines. Sure. Great. I took a seat toward the back of the gondola as Keegan departed and Graulich got settled. Until this point, I had been fairly quiet, trying to smile and chatting with Mendez, who stayed on the ground for our trip. Now I could feel that good cheer slowly leeching out of me.
We were welcomed onto the airship by chief pilot Terry Dillard, who turned around and said over his shoulder, “I have one seat right up front, if anyone wants to sit here.” He gestured to the seat next to him.
I took a deep breath and had an “it’s now or never moment.” I could sit in the back, ask my questions from there and pretend I was just hanging out in a weird, oval room doing just another interview. Or I could sit in the front of the blimp. I could see everything coming at us.
So that’s what I did. I unbuckled and stumbled awkwardly between the seats and plopped into the seat next to Dillard. “Hi,” I said. “Let’s do this.” It was completely the right decision.
As we took off at a steep angle that typically would have caused my stomach to feel like it was crawling up into my throat, Dillard chatted with me, making me laugh as he explained every detail of how the airship is steered, accelerated and kept afloat.
While the ride was smooth — just as Mendez promised — the view was incredible. Dillard took us out to the Atlantic shoreline, where we made a U-turn to head back to the airport. The water looked fantastic.
I only got lightheaded once: When I made the mistake of sticking my head out of the window and looking straight down. Admittedly, I kind of asked for that.
And my stomach only turned once: When the blimp made a sharp right turn and pointed toward the ground as we prepared to land. I gritted my teeth and looked out the window. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Graulich chuckling at me as he continued to snap photos. Yeah, that’s right. I saw you. When I hopped out of the gondola, I didn’t feel the relief that usually accompanies the end of an airplane flight — because I was never really scared. I felt exhilarated. I had done it, and it was great.
The experience was capped by a quick on-video interview with Dillard. I asked him about things he had seen from the air.
“We see a lot of different things, you know,” he said. “When you’re out over the Everglades, you see a lot of alligators and things like that. A lot of wildlife, a lot of bald eagles.”
“Have you seen the swamp ape?” I asked, only half-joking.
“The swamp ape? No,” he said, smiling. “Still looking.”