**Blimp launch information** (and new banner photo)

[RonPaulFanInGA]

It's starting to feel like groundhog day. Always just two days away from the launch.

 

[Man from La Mancha]

When does the clock start for the full 30 days of renting the blimp start?
.

 

[AisA1787]

Thanks for the update! Let's hope for the best.

 

[Indy Vidual]

God Bless them!

Our Ron Paul Tea Party 07 is going to be HUGE!

I've saved up a thousand bucks for December 16th!

Can't wait! But I will. Just hope their servers can handle it!

Theirs like a million things to do to get the Ron Paul Blimp in the air.

I'm surprised they've gotten so much done already. Great work!

Everyone has donated so much time and money... and worked so hard on this project.

We're all getting tired but its worth it.

Its a long road... but it's really coming together!

Thanks, for the positive energy

 

[RP4Pres2008]

Remember that this blimp is about a lot more than the tea party and that even if it is in Boston on the 16th it will only be able to fly over the tea party if the weather behaves. This blimp is about name recognition for Ron Paul and media coverage and it has already gotten 10, 15, 20 mentions in some pretty big media outlets...so it's already doing its job.

I am biting my tongue HUGE here because I respect the work that everyone is doing. But you saying this pretty much infuriates me. Do you not understand that people gave $200,000 SOLEY to get the blimp to Boston for the Tea Party...which was promised by your company (if we get $200,000 by Friday midnight, the blimp will launch on December 10th and we can get the blimp to Boston by the 16th).

Why promise something and now, when you can't make good on these promises, say oh don't worry about the tea party guys, the whole reason for the blimp was name recoginition and media coverage...

So now the blimp will launch not on the 10th, not on the 11th, not on the 12th, not on the 13th, but HOPEFULLY (no guarantees) the 14th.

 

[BeFranklin]

Hi everyone. We are dealing with weather and some security delays on the banners.

The banner company tried to ship the first banner on a plane but ended up needing 4 weeks notice (for security) for a cargo shipment so it is travelling to the blimp UPS and should be there by tommorow (the 12th) AM. The second banner will arrive by Thursday (the 13th). Please keep in mind that the manager at the hangar has expressed his amazement that we got a banner into production so quickly. He has explicity told us that blimp banners usually take MONTHS to design, order and produce. The corporate manager told me today that a lot of companies can't get things together well enough to fly in much more time than we have had. So, please be patient.

There are weather considerations as well. Unless the weather is completely calm with no wind the blimp cannot get a banner put on outdoors (Insert mental picture of blimp rotating like a clock's big hand around the mast truck in the middle and a cherry picker trying to chase it around). There are only 2 hangars in the Eastern US that can hold something as big as the future Ron Paul blimp. One of them is the hangar where it is now in Elizabeth City, NC...the other is in New Jersey. Unfortunately the one in New Jersey is highly subject to winds and winter weather in the area and the blimp cannot enter or get out unless the weather cooperates, so it has been decided that the second banner will almost certainly go on in the hangar in NC before the blimp's innaugural launch.

To summarize, no guarantees but the blimp will probably depart on Friday. I will do my best to provide weather and schedule updates.

As a consolation prize check out this picture of the first banner being sewn in MA.

I originally heard this banner was coming from a different place than MA. If its coming from MA, why did it need to be flown?

 

[BeFranklin]

Hi everyone. We are dealing with weather and some security delays on the banners.

The banner company tried to ship the first banner on a plane but ended up needing 4 weeks notice (for security) for a cargo shipment so it is travelling to the blimp UPS and should be there by tommorow (the 12th) AM.

As a consolation prize check out this picture of the first banner being sewn in MA.

If the banner company had trouble shipping the first banner, why does your caption of the picture say this is the first banner "being sewn" in present tense, and the photograph itself indicates it was taken by a Canon power shot TODAY around noon?

 

[RobS]

*Austin Power voice* ahhh trolls. trolley trolley trolley, ahh trolley!

 

[Harald]

Hi there, Ben. It is cool.

If the banner company had trouble shipping the first banner, why does your caption of the picture say this is the first banner "being sewn" in present tense, and the photograph itself indicates it was taken by a Canon power shot TODAY around noon?

My reading of it is:

There are two sides. One banner is completed and being shipped by UPS to arrive on 12/12.

Another one (the one you see in the picture) will be there on Thursday.

Cheers everybody and good job, Blimp Team!

 

[GeorgiaRPFan]

Well it looks like there's going to be a blizzard in Boston on Tea Party day anyway, so it sounds unlikely the blimp can be there even if it is finished.

 

[kutibah]

I am biting my tongue HUGE here because I respect the work that everyone is doing. But you saying this pretty much infuriates me. Do you not understand that people gave $200,000 SOLEY to get the blimp to Boston for the Tea Party...which was promised by your company (if we get $200,000 by Friday midnight, the blimp will launch on December 10th and we can get the blimp to Boston by the 16th).

Why promise something and now, when you can't make good on these promises, say oh don't worry about the tea party guys, the whole reason for the blimp was name recoginition and media coverage...

So now the blimp will launch not on the 10th, not on the 11th, not on the 12th, not on the 13th, but HOPEFULLY (no guarantees) the 14th.

It was out of his control.

He said "The banner company tried to ship the first banner on a plane but ended up needing 4 weeks notice (for security) for a cargo shipment so it is travelling to the blimp UPS and should be there by tommorow (the 12th) AM. The second banner will arrive by Thursday (the 13th)."

The fault is on the banner company for not providing notice before hand that shipping may be delayed.

 

[Indy Vidual]

Well it looks like there's going to be a blizzard in Boston on Tea Party day anyway, so it sounds unlikely the blimp can be there even if it is finished.

At least the snow won't stop people from donating to HQ on Sunday

 

[erran speaker]

i would think flying around washington dc would be a nice consolation prize... just a thought, please don't kill me... :o

 

[BeFranklin]

My reading of it is:

There are two sides. One banner is completed and being shipped by UPS to arrive on 12/12.

Another one (the one you see in the picture) will be there on Thursday.
!

There is no reason to guess about such a thing. If the banners are actually being made, than I'm sure we would have heard that. What we heard is there is a delay in shipping it. If they haven't even been sewn yet, the Monday launch was clearly not delayed for any other reason than it had not been sewn yet. I believe that makes it impossible to reach the Boston Tea Party, but that is also not being said.

The caption of the photograph says the first banner.

Using Microsoft Office Picture, I see that this first banner picture was taken today.

Camera properties

Camera Model: Canon PowerShot S3 IS
Equipment Make: Canon
Date Taken: 12/11/2007 12:40:44PM
Color Representation: sRGB
Subject Distance:
Flash Used: No
Focal Length: 8.4 mm
F-Number: F/3.2
Exposure Time: 1/80 sec.
Metering Mode: Pattern
Exposure Compensation: 0 step

 

[GeorgiaRPFan]

It was out of his control.

He said "The banner company tried to ship the first banner on a plane but ended up needing 4 weeks notice (for security) for a cargo shipment so it is travelling to the blimp UPS and should be there by tommorow (the 12th) AM. The second banner will arrive by Thursday (the 13th)."

The fault is on the banner company for not providing notice before hand that shipping may be delayed.

Aren't you glad to know it takes a month to ship something domestically for "security reasons", while Mexicans are hopping the border and China is sending us poison-laden products daily?

 

[banjojambo9]

The people that forged this country went through much harder trials than this .I say forge forward >ignore wet blanket thinking I BRAG ABOUT DONATING TO THIS BLIMP AND I AM PROUD OF ALL THE PEOPLE INVOLVED .its agood topic starter to talk to people about ron paul everyone I have mentioned his name to in the last week have given me a positive attitude about this campaign

 

[libertyfilms]

My problem is Liberty Advertising said yesterday that the banners would arrive today and the blimp would be launched tomorrow.

Now we find out that the second banner isn't even done yet.

Surely they knew this yesterday, but they kept up with the charade that everything was on schedule.

And, surely they knew all of this when they began soliciting funds.

Nothing is adding up.

Not to mention that those buying advertising time were promised the blimp would be in Boston for the Tea Party, but now they are minimizing the impact of the blimp in Boston and just talking about random media impact wherever it may fly in the dead of winter on the East Coast.

 

[RP4Pres2008]

There is no reason to guess about such a thing. If the banners are actually being made, than I'm sure we would have heard that. What we heard is there is a delay in shipping it. If they haven't even been sewn yet, the Monday launch was clearly not delayed for any other reason than it had not been sewn yet. I believe that makes it impossible to reach the Boston Tea Party, but that is also not being said.

The caption of the photograph says the first banner.

Using Microsoft Office Picture, I see that this first banner picture was taken today.

Camera properties

Camera Model: Canon PowerShot S3 IS
Equipment Make: Canon
Date Taken: 12/11/2007 12:40:44PM
Color Representation: sRGB
Subject Distance:
Flash Used: No
Focal Length: 8.4 mm
F-Number: F/3.2
Exposure Time: 1/80 sec.
Metering Mode: Pattern
Exposure Compensation: 0 step

Exactly what I am saying. If these banners weren't even being made until today, why did they tell us last Thursday to get the money in so the blimp could launch on Dec 10th?

 

[BeFranklin]

i would think flying around washington dc would be a nice consolation prize... just a thought, please don't kill me... :o

The consolation prize is calling it that.

I write articles. I am published. If the blimp crew doesn't start acting nicer, that is what I will publish in scholarly journals, and that is what the history books will say. So be nice with supporters

 

[wxflyguy]

My problem is Liberty Advertising said yesterday that the banners would arrive today and the blimp would be launched tomorrow.

Now we find out that the second banner isn't even done yet.

Surely they knew this yesterday, but they kept up with the charade that everything was on schedule.

And, surely they knew all of this when they began soliciting funds.

Nothing is adding up.

Not to mention that those buying advertising time were promised the blimp would be in Boston for the Tea Party, but now they are minimizing the impact of the blimp in Boston and just talking about random media impact wherever it may fly in the dead of winter on the East Coast.

For those BlimpTeam haters out there, I suggest you wait until the 16th to get all spun up. If there's a Nor'easter like weather forecasters are expecting, the thing won't fly anyways and if it looks like a major snowstorm in Boston, it may not even be able to be there on the ground. Additionally, these companies wanted to see the money rolling in before jumping on sewing up a banner and readying the blimp...once again, the normal process takes weeks. Put things into a little bit of perspective folks...this thing is going to make waves regardless of whether it flies in Boston or not!