Forgive me for asking a off the wall question, but are airships tracked? I see them pasting thru the area from time to time and like to see where they’re heading to. 
I would assume that they all fly VFR, therefore no, they wouldn’t show up.
Airships travel VFR (don’t think there is a Lighter then air instrument rating). Not all VFR flights are tracked, check out the FAQ’s
I need to hit submit quicker 
Actually they can file IFR. I was standing in the flight service station (back when there was one) at KCMX when the Goodyear blimp air filed from Ironwood MI (KIWD) to KMSP. As I recall the filed airspeed was something 15 knots.
I was thinking it was possible but when I checked part 61 for an instrument rating it didn’t spell out lighter then air at all.
[quote=“61.65”]Sec. 61.65 - Instrument rating requirements.
(a) General. A person who applies for an instrument rating must:
(1) Hold at least a current private pilot certificate with an airplane, helicopter, or powered-lift rating appropriate to the instrument rating sought;
[/quote]
Though…
All the certificates (private, commerical, & ATP require actual IMC, so I guess they’re equiped and do fly IMC. And an ATP is an instrument rating so there you go.
The more I looked, I don’t think there is an instrument rating for flying a blimp. If you want to fly one in the clouds you need to have an ATP.
This would not be my area of knowledge, so any blimp pilots want to chime in, please set me straight.
i always wondered about this topic, thanks for posting it.
Does this also go for hot air balloons as well???
i know it would be hard to file a flight plan with a hot air balloon, but i always wondered if they had to let the airport know they were launching? And if so the general area?
are in operation in the US?
I was wondering if it would be possible to set up a sort of scheduled blimp service to some nearby vacation locations (say about 200 - 300 miles).
[quote=“Giselher”]
are in operation in the US?
I was wondering if it would be possible to set up a sort of scheduled blimp service to some nearby vacation locations (say about 200 - 300 *miles).
*
It would be extremely expensive and the resulting fares very high to have a scheduled blimp service. Most blimps carry very few passengers (less than about 10), you need a ground crew of several people at both the destination and the point of origin. The type of weather that the blimp could fly in is limited.
The FAA says there are about 6,903 lighter-than-air (LTA) aircraft registered with about 4,380 of them active in 2005 (the latest year for statistics). However, it doesn’t break it down into different types of LTA aircraft like hot air balloons, blimps, etc.
<today’s rant>
As a courtesy to other readers, please DO NOT change the subject line then expect people to know what you are talking about. “are in the operation in the US?” is the first thing people will see when they look at your posting. The teeny-tiny revised subject line will probably be missed by most people. Besides, it’s just plain laziness and rudeness to have a sentence that begins in the subject line and ends in the body of the posting.
I’m just curious - why do people think it’s cute to use the subject line as part of a sentence and place the rest of the sentence in the body of the forum? Is it laziness? Then all you have to do is type the subject once, highlight it, press the ctrl key and, without releasing the ctrl key, press the C key. Then, in the body of the forum press the ctrl key and, without releasing the ctrl key, press the V key. Then, enter a space and type the rest of the sentence.
</today’s rant>[/quote]
Limiting yourself to just one a day now? Can you get it down to 3 a week? 
I’ll try but ya knows I gotta calls 'em as I sees 'em! 
I’m just curious - why do people think it’s cute to use the subject line as part of a sentence and place the rest of the sentence in the body of the forum? Is it laziness? <<<<<<
Nah! It’s just to p**s you off! 
…and they do a great job of it! 
8) 
(didn’t know what emotion I felt about that statement so I thought I’d cover them all)
You have now fulfilled your emoticon usage requirement for the month…
Damn! I was trying for the year’s quota!
At least he’s not one of those tough guys that woun’t let us see his emotions. We almost got to see him cry.
As a hot air balloon student pilot, (post solo) my experience is that no flight plan is filed, for obvious reasons. We do make it a point to make position reports to the local airports in the area, towered or not, sometimes well outside of their airspace radius. We usually are 1500’ and below (well below). It’s sometimes an education process for those controllers who respond with “remain clear of the class D” and we say, well, we’ll sure try, but we doubt it.
Then there was the one time I went to 5500’ for burner failure training…