When I was about 12, my old man was working as a local government city official. He secured tickets for us to ride the GoodYear blimp out of Carson, CA (The Los Angeles blimp).
Great adventure! The cabin underneath the blimp itself holds about a dozen or so people comfortably. The "ride" was about an hour long. Fun watching the crew run out to grab the trailing lines when it was time to "land."
Years later I knew a deputy sheriff that worked the Carson area. He told me it was quite normal for the blimp to receive bullet holes from nearby gang areas (Primarily Victoria Park) as it flew in and out of range of ground-based gunfire. So little air (helium) escaped from these holes that they were only really patched on an approximately annual basis. Carson, for what it is worth, borders Compton, so if you are unfamiliar with the region, you can get an idea of the inherent random gunfire concerns.
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Chino 1960's to 1976, Torrance, CA 1976-1983, 87-91, 94-98 / Frederick Co., MD 1983-1987/ Valencia, CA 1991-1994/ Brea, CA 1998-2002/ Dana Point, CA 2002-2019/ Knoxville, TN 2019-Current/ FL 2022-Current
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