West Mifflin Borough welcomes the DIRECTV Blimp

If you’ve traveled on Lebanon Road, in West Mifflin in the past week or two you’ve probably noticed a large, blue, blimp.

The Allegheny County Airport in West Mifflin has been home to the DIRECTV Blimp while it has been in town, hovering over the Pirates games.
It isn’t every day that we see a blimp at our airport, what makes this even more special is that the DIRECTV Blimp has a one of a kind big screen on it.

What is a “blimp”? – well, a simple definition is “a small, nonrigid airship”.

The blimp is owned and operated by the Van Wagner Airship Group.
Here are some facts:

• The blimp measures about 178ft in length, and 46ft in width.
• The blimp holds about 170,000 cubic feet of helium.
• Its cabin (gondola) is designed to hold up to 8 passengers
• It has a top speed of about 48mph.
• Its cruising speed is around 32mph.
• The blimp video screen measures 70ft x 30ft
• There are more than 33,600 pixels, and 235,200 LEDS in the one of a kind big screen.

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While the blimp has been in town, they’ve been getting some really great pictures of Pittsburgh: