Private companies operated commercial blimps out of Elizabeth City for five years longer than the U.S. Navy did during and after World War II but new forms of technology ultimately led to the end of commercial airship operations.
Long-time Elizabeth City resident and airship pilot Scott Danneker told the Museum of the Albemarle’s History for Lunch program, Wednesday, March 20, that the introduction of drones and advanced camera systems on helicopters are some of the reasons commercial blimp operations eventually ended in Elizabeth City. That ended decades of the city being front and center of the commercial blimp industry, dating back to the 1960s.
Blimps first made their appearance in the city during World War II but those operations ended following the end of the war. The giant hangars in Weeksville were then converted into storage space for military airplanes.
“There were so many airplanes stored in the hangars here in Weeksville that there was no room left for the airships,” Danneker said. “They had to fly them out to New Jersey.”
Military blimps, however, returned to the city in 1947 and remained until 1957.
“They were doing pretty much what they were doing before, that role being defensive anti-submarine work,” Danneker said. “There was a lot of stuff going on, they brought in some new blimps. They even brought in some helicopters. Everything was going great.”
But in the spring of 1957, Danneker said rumors were swirling that the military was poised to close the Weeksville Naval Air Station.
“The Daily Advance got in touch with our local congressman, Herbert Bonner, and says, ‘Hey, what is going on here?’ Bonner said ‘don’t worry about it; these are just all rumors.’”
But less than a month later, the Pentagon announced that the base would indeed be closed.
“Congressman Bonner was even caught by surprise by this,” Danneker said.
When the military finally pulled out of Elizabeth City for good it was a huge economic blow to the city. The base’s payroll at the time was $3 million annually, which is $33 million in today’s dollars.
“Nobody could do anything about because the decision was made inside the Navy itself,” Danneker said. “The decision was made strictly within the Pentagon by lower level officers. Why? They wanted aircraft carriers.”
The state bought the 822-acre naval base in 1964 and tried to turn it into an industrial park. But Danneker said that effort quickly failed and the state eventually sold the former base to the Westinghouse Electric Corp.
“They bought the whole thing,” Danneker said.
Westinghouse first built kitchen cabinets on the former site of the naval base but then formed TCOM in 1971, which builds “tethered unpowered balloons,” Danneker said.
The energy crisis in the 1970s brought about renewed interest in airships for aerial surveillance for such tasks as pollution monitoring, search and rescue and drug interdiction, among other missions.
“You don’t want to send a battleship out to look for some drug smugglers,” Danneker said.
Danneker said a British company called Airship Industries brought airships back to Elizabeth City in an effort to build them for the military.
The company did receive a $170 million contract from the federal government but knowing it would take time for federal money to start “rolling in,” Danneker said the company needed to make money in the meantime.
The company signed a contract with the Fuji Corporation to build a blimp in Elizabeth City. Pilots and ground crew for other commercial blimps were also trained in the city.
“Now, we have commercial operations,” Danneker said.
Those commercial operations expanded over the years to include blimps for MetLife, Sea World and other corporations.
Money from the Pentagon started to dry up in the mid-1990s, thus ending funding for special projects for the company.
“We flew around for a while wondering where the next paycheck was coming from,” Danneker said.
Then in August 1995, the company’s wooden hangar burned to the ground.
“It was all gone,” Danneker said.
The company then started providing blimp rides over the city.
“We have these spare airships so we start flying people over downtown,” he said.
But times started to change with the new technology. The beginning of the end for large commercial blimps started in 2008 when Fuji canceled its contract with Airship Management Services after 25 years.
“Things started waning quite a bit,” Danneker said.
Danneker said the end happened in Elizabeth City on Oct. 1, 2010 when the last Airship Management Services airship was pulled “off the mast” during a storm and collided with a TCOM aerostat resulting in its total loss.
“That essentially was the end for airships in Elizabeth City,” Danneker said. “We still get the occasional one in and out but for all intentional purposes they are gone.”
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