Blue sky thinking...

I scribbled a short piece in the Observer this weekend, a sort of special edition of the regular column of yore, to celebrate my getting airborne again in the airship last week (the spectacular pictures of which you can see here). The article as always is here on the Observer website, but I've also cut and pasted the text below for those of you who are too lazy-assed to click through!

It's been a good few weeks for freelance work too with another interview I did with the heroic Mark from www.seat61.com whilst we travelled in style to Brussels and back courtesy of Eurostar (with Mark sitting in the famous seat number that gave the website it's name). You can find out more about the man and story behind what is undoubtedly the world's best independent rail advice service by reading my full article on the Green Futures website here.

The Slow Traveller, Observer 20.7.08

He went around the world without flying, but thanks to a new airship, last week Ed Gillespie finally got airborne

The gondola rolled gently to one side in a lethargic motion and I swayed uncertainly along with it. No, I wasn't gliding along a Venetian canal, instead I was floating lazily up into a cloudless sky above an Essex airfield. My craft was a bloated blimp captained by the charmingly excitable and exceedingly posh Katharine 'chocks away!' Bord - the world's only female airship pilot.

After returning a few months ago from our global circumnavigation without flying, it was a strange experience for me to be airborne again, in what felt like a posh minibus (it had leather seats) slung beneath the belly of a vast aerial whale. It had been more than two years since I had been on a plane for work - for a five-week climate change assignment in China - and almost six years since my last holiday flight. But the sedate, serene and indeed graceful way in which our balloon rose into the air was a far cry from the rumble, roar and G-force-inducing thrust of your average climate-stewing jet.

'I hog the airship,' trilled Katharine, explaining with genuine passion her affection for the vessel and her reluctance to cede control to her co-pilot. Was it a lucrative occupation, I enquired, as she waxed lyrical about the joy of being paid to 'float around the world', her energetic and enthusiastic delivery in stark contrast to the apparently lackadaisical movement of the balloony beast we were travelling in. 'Well, it keeps me in boots and handbags,' she said.

Similar tourist airships are being launched in several cities around the world, and as London lolled beneath us in the hot July sunshine I pondered the potential of airships to play a genuine transport role in a carbon-constrained future, perhaps offering an alternative to fuel-hungry aviation. Tomorrow's passengers would surely relish the sightseeing potential of airship travel - and it would be a damn sight faster than any cargo ship.

Sadly, my research tells me, in the short term this is not to be. While breathtakingly spectacular, this glorified sightseeing trip over the capital was, frankly, pretty pricey. Like it or not, airships are also still at the mercy of the elements, making their use on regular point-to-point journeys too unreliable to make business sense. It would be a perverse irony indeed if the return of this low-carbon form of flying were to be ultimately scuppered by the very increase in climate turbulence it might do so much to alleviate.

Star Over London's sightseeing flights run until 21 August; trips cost £185 for around 30 minutes (020 7183 3911; www.staroverlondon.com).

Airborne again!

Yesterday I went up in the airship and rolled in the thermally turbulent skies over London at a mere 1000feet. It was awesome and I'll write more about the jaunt later...in the meantime here's some photos to whet the appetite! Just call me Ed Zeppelin!

Ed Zeppelin...

...OK, got to contain my excitement but just got confirmation of my trip in the Star Over London in a week or so's time. I'll be getting a flavour of what it's like to float sedately over London suspended in a wee gondola beneath the vast bulk of a giant 75m long helium balloon. Mental. I'll be writing a piece about airship travel for the Observer following the flight and can't wait!

Airship joy?

Wow. Following this blog I wrote on Futerra's website the other week I've since found out through my good buddy Jamie at www.loco2travel.com about the forthcoming airship that's a coming to good old London town this summer. Sponsored by Belgian superbrew Stella Artois, as the beer ad goes the trips through the skies above London will be reassuringly expensive starting at £185 a pop (though that's still a little cheaper than Branson's space twanging flights in his new rocket that will rob you of around £100,000). That said there's a huge visible message that will be sent by the very presence of the swollen blimp above our heads. Salience (the conspicuous or obvious nature of something) is key to changing environmental attitudes and behaviours (as we found whilst researching our 'New Rules' of communicating climate change) and hopefully seeing an airship floating sedately above our city will trigger a few moments of curiosity and intrigue...the first tentative steps in generating demand. The official website for the airship 'Star Over London' is here. I am now frantically trying to blag my way onto a flight!