MovieChat Forums > Black Sunday (1977) Discussion > Is it hard to puncture a blimp?

Is it hard to puncture a blimp?

posted 11 years ago by ponyboy58
3 replies | jump to latest

That is all.

[–] rockmail 11 years ago

Yes the outer hull is quite tough, and it won't do much anyway, the helium is contained in a series of separated "balloons" under relatively low pressure. So not much is going to leak out for quite a while.

So shooting a blimp just makes an annoying maintenance task.

[–] Butteoid 10 years ago

The maintenance crews for the blimps have to repair bullet holes all the time from idiots taking pot shots. The helium pressure is relatively low so even a lot of bullets would create only slow leaks. And of course, unlike the Hindenburg, the blimps are filled with nonflamable helium, not explosive hydrogen.
Great film, by the way.

[–] shoobe01 10 years ago

I recall when the US Navy more recently went back to airship experiments (maybe the 90s?), a captain of one interviewed about the risks said that if they were catastrophically damaged, like took a missile, they'd (paraphrasing) have time to put on a pot of coffee before they had to prepare for crashing into the ocean.

What's been said before. Not easy to damage, you have to go through several layers to make gas leak out, it won't pop like a balloon, and... gas leaks out in normal operation. It would take a lot of holes to crash it.

If I was in a Bell 412 and had to stop one from bombing the Superbowl... I GUESS that's still a spoiler, then I'd shoot at the cab and engines as they did. It takes some piloting and power to keep on station, so will blow away and eventually drift into the ground if not under positive control.