Amherst blimp maker gives Ron Paul campaign a lift

By Mary Carey
Staff Writer

Published on December 28, 2007

It's a near-epic tale involving maverick Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, his huge Internet following, a snowstorm, a multimillion dollar blimp, expert stitchers and Amherst inventor Dan Nachbar.

Where it begins is not as important as where it might end - with luck, in New Hampshire on presidential primary day, Jan. 8.

The story is about a giant blimp emblazoned with the message, "Who is Ron Paul?" on one side and "Ron Paul Revolution" on the other. Some of Paul's online supporters came up with the idea of flying a blimp to early primary states, giving contributors a chance to take a ride along the way. They hope to raise $400,000 by Dec. 21 to keep leasing the blimp through the New Hampshire primary. On Wednesday, they were closing in on $300,000.

Two weeks ago, Paul supporters shattered Internet fundraising records, raising $6 million in a day.

In the blimp business

Dan Nachbar, who is in the blimp business, made the two 90-foot-long by 30-foot-tall banners with the messages on them and drove one of them to North Carolina in mid-December's snowstorm. Suffice it to say, it took him and a crack team of stitchers about four hours just to get to Hartford.

The last Nachbar had heard on Wednesday of last week, the blimp was flying somewhere over Maryland and is expected in Connecticut this weekend.

How Nachbar, who describes himself as "a blimp guy more than a political guy," ended up making the banners is straightforward enough. It began with a phone call a couple of weeks ago from a fellow blimp guy, George Spyrou, owner of Airship Management Inc., of Greenwich, Conn., whom the Paul people had approached about renting a blimp.

Spyrou's "airship," as a blimp is sometimes called, is a big $4 million vehicle. Nachbar and co-inventor Michael Kuehlmuss, by contrast, have designed and are testing a smaller, much less expensive craft, namely a prototype hot-air powered "personal blimp" in the shape of a bee. Once they are ready to market the personal blimp, which they take for test rides in North Amherst, they'll probably sell for $100,000 to $200,000 a piece.

In the meantime, Nachbar has the equipment and know-how to make the kind of banners the Paul people would need to get their message across on Spyrou's blimp. The only problem was, it would take about two months to make the banner in normal circumstances, and Paul's supporters wanted to put the blimp in the air ASAP.

Spyrou asked Nachbar if he could do a rush job, since Nachbar has six industrial sewing machines, the skills and the tools to accomplish such a feat. Nachbar could do it, he said, if he could get some expert sewers pronto.

"It looks like a sheet of fabric, but in fact, it's an aircraft component," Nachbar explained about making a banner. "It has to be sewn in such a way to conform with engineering drawings that the FAA approves. You can't just take a sheet and hang it on the side of the blimp."

As luck would have it, Nachbar flew in a total of three experts from Louisiana, Florida and Georgia, early last week, and they made the first banner, sewing together 12-by-5-foot strips printed in Virginia in a marathon sewing session lasting 17 hours. It was done by Dec. 11, and Nachbar overnight-mailed it to a hangar in North Carolina that housed the blimp.

Nachbar and associates had to wait a little while for another shipment of printed fabric from Virginia to tackle the second banner, which they finished by 3 p.m. Dec. 13. They had multiple plans in place for getting it to North Carolina in time for the first blimp flight, all of which were subverted by the snow storm. The Ron Paul blimp's first flight had just one banner.

Now, it's just a matter of getting the fully bedecked blimp to East Coast primary states on time - that, and the fundraising, which Nachbar is fairly confident the Paul people know how to pull off.

"With blimps, it's all about the weather," Nachbar said. "The thing they have to be careful of is winter storms. If ice accumulates on one side, the blimp can roll over."

Rain, though, is no problem, so the Paul people will probably have to play chicken with the storms, Nachbar said. "They'll fly south far enough for it to be rain, not snow and ice, and they'll keep this up as long as the money holds up."

Mary Carey can be reached at mary.carey@att.net.