20 years ago I had the chance to be a passenger on the WDL-1b blimp in Germany. It was built in 1988 and was 60m long, a traditional blimp with two gondola mounted 200hp Contis , reversible propellers and 7 passenger seats.
As it was a very hot summer day we took off with only the pilot, my friend who had won this trip and me.
It was a very strange experience as it had nothing to do with flying as I was used to in my gliders or other aircraft. It was really a ship!
Every thermal we entered lifted the nose while the pilot was running the elevator wheel to keep it low, then we drove through the rising air, exited and the tail was lifted while the pilot ran the elevator wheel backwards. One of the most prominent instruments was an inclinometer that regularly showed angles of plus or minus 30° while we were on board! It was like being in the navy again on a destroyer in heavy weather, only that the ship rolled while we pitched … .
The windows could be rolled down like in a car and we had a cool breeze in the gondola going less than 50kph. But as the engines and propellers were directly to the side of the cabin it was enormously noisy, I feared for my hearing.
Once in a while we would graze a thermal and the blimp started to oscillate on the roll axis. Really a ship!
For landing the pilot sort of drove the blimp into the ground applying nose down elevator after touch down, then the ground crew catched the ropes while running, fanned out, held the nose down and full reverse was applied to stop the blimp. During the whole time the pilot was applying very large control inputs on the elevator wheel and on the rudder. The rudder had pedals large enough to be stomped on with both feet on each side and the pilot did so several times during landing. No boosted controls. I have never seen another pilot having to work that much physically in a cockpit.
Then the blimp was pulled to the mast by the ground crew and we could exit. Slowly and while exiting some ballast was added immediately. An unforgettable 2h flight.
Unfortunately this blimp was destroyed in an enormous thunderstorm in 2014. But a new one was built using salvaged parts and a spare gondola.