M Resort blimp grounded after last Vegas flight

By Amanda Finnegan

Tuesday, April 7, 2009 | 2:10 a.m.

More than 1,000 feet above the valley, airship captain Terry Dillard had a great view of Las Vegas. And for the past six months, Las Vegas had a spectacular view of his product.

Until a few days ago, Dillard was responsible for The M Resort Lightship.

The 178-foot-long M Resort advertisement was a fixture in the Las Vegas sky long before the property opened. It had one main goal: Help to draw the crowds that have kept the resort busy since opening night.

But resort officials said Monday that the M Lightship won’t be back in the Vegas sky. It took its final flight March 31 and headed back to The Lightship Group headquarters in Orlando, Fla., on Friday after M Resort chairman and CEO Anthony Marnell III decided not to renew the blimp’s contract.

“We were extremely pleased with the success of the M Lightship. It proved to be a welcomed addition to the city of Las Vegas,” Marnell said in a statement. “The Lightship Group did a phenomenal job in delivering a new, exciting and entertaining product to the Las Vegas community and we could not have asked for a better partner to help us launch the M.”

An M Resort spokesperson said Marnell believed the Lightship had served its purpose and he decided not renew its yearly contact, which ended in March, a year after work was started to build the M Lightship.

The price tag for operating the blimp per day was about $3,000, including fuel, helium and labor, Lightship director of client services Mikey Wittman said.

The advertisements on the 70-by-30-foot screen from companies like Coca-Cola and Cirque du Soleil helped to pay the Lightship’s expenses.

Wittman said the Lightship Group began its partnership with M while looking for casino operators to bring the A-170S Video Lightsign Lightship to Las Vegas for its debut flight. Marnell was the first to sign up.

“We wanted to give M Resort a unique introduction into the Vegas market, very much like how Anthony [Marnell] does things,” Wittman said.

The M Lightship was one of only three Lightships with LED screens in the world. As for the other two, one is traveling over China and the other is leased to DirecTV. The 280-pound M decal will be stripped off the Lightship and repackaged for a new client, possibly even a client in Las Vegas, Wittman said.

Despite the non-renewal of the M contract, he said both Marnell and the Lightship Group benefited over the past year.

“It was a great partnership,” Wittman said. “We’re calling it a success on both ends.”

The Lightship Group made an appearance in 2000 with its VEGAS.com airship. But it didn’t include the 1,000-pound, 235,200-LED (light-emitting diode) screen that was part of the M blimp.

“We’ve flown blimps in Las Vegas before but never with a Lightsign, so there was a real learning curve of when to fly, where to fly, where to get the most visibility,” Wittman said.

During its stay in Vegas, the M Lightship and its crew of 20 called the North Las Vegas Airport home. Attached to a mast at the front end and sandbagged down in the back, the M Lightship swayed in the desert wind.

It takes a team of 10 to 15 people on the ground, a pilot, a co-pilot and favorable weather to get the 178-by-46-by-55-foot Lightship off the ground. After some balancing of weight in the cabin and a radio call to the tower, the Lightship is guided to its “runway” by a ground crew anchoring the ship with three thick ropes.

As the Lightship takes off, the co-pilot or front passenger releases the three ropes through the side window.

“We’re used to working with grass, not the desert. These ropes can’t drag because if rocks kicked up into the balloon, we’d be done,” Dillard said during a flight last month just days before the blimp left Las Vegas.

Dillard has been flying blimps all over the country — from Florida to New Jersey to California — since he started his career with airships in 1990. He’s seen Super Bowls and Professional Golf Association matches from a perspective like no other, and during his time in Las Vegas, he’s seen fires, police chases, resort openings and traffic jams on Interstate 15.

Dillard controls the Lightship with two rudder pedals on the floor, which move the blimp from left to right, and two wheels to the side of his seat called elevators that move it up and down.

“Most people think all you need to fly an airship is a driver’s license but that’s not true. You need aviation experience,” Dillard said over the roaring Lightship engine. “A lot of the guys that come to us have helicopter experience and I have to train the pilots to slow down. I have to get the speed out of them.”

It travels at an average speed of 32 mph, burning 15 gallons of fuel per hour at a cost of $4 a gallon. The M Lightship traveled in five- or six-hour spurts before switching pilots and going up again.

Cruising altitude is anywhere from 100 to more than 1,000 feet, depending on what’s below, Dillard said. The Federal Aviation Administration requires an airship to travel at least 1,000 feet high when it’s over people, Dillard said, but it can hover at 100 feet in the open desert.

“The problem at 100 feet is we get a lot of 911 calls that a blimp is crashing. Everyone tries to be a hero,” Dillard said.

Last fall, the Lightship traveled into Los Angeles and San Diego for a month in an effort to draw Southern California residents to the new resort on the south end of the valley. There were plans to travel back across the state line this month but those plans ended when the contract did.

During the months leading to M’s March 1 opening, the Lightship traveled throughout the Las Vegas Valley, but after the opening it never traveled north of the Strip. Dillard said it didn’t make sense for the blimp to travel in areas that were too far for the typical resident to drive.

The Lightship’s four-person cabin has seen Marnell, his wife and children, some of M’s VIPs and Marnell’s mother. Pleasing the boss is key, Dillard said.

Aside from not flying in winds exceeding 18 mph, Dillard also doesn’t fly in precipitation.

“The blimp is a fair-weather creature. It’s good for picnics, barbecues and sunny days,” Dillard said. “When I think of rain, I think of umbrellas and no one will see the blimp.”