Page 190 - Blimp News Today

Rob, tell us whats going on from your perspective. >> reporter: well, im looking above me and between 500 and 700 feet is that bim. you were talking about. its a navy-owned blimp that is being contracted out by the piloting up there. its one of the most interesting and impressive things i have seen involved in this oil spill to date. it is cruising 30, thrive miles an hour. its heading east and were heading due west. what they have been doing since they have got this blimp into command is to hav...

I would guess they would say yes. if you want to read more about this, i have a lot of e-mail, and go to my blog cnn.com/caffertyfile. they start to work for a job in earnest. do you know where that is? earnest? >> no. thank you, jack. prowling the skies looking for oil on the water. you will get a blimps eye view. standby. and a official is sacked over allegations of discrimination. she is fighting back, and donna brazile is supporting her against accusations from the obama administration. wh...

We havent seen any big slicks of oil. our crew says that sometimes around sunset, they will start to see a light sheen across the water, but we havent seen anything like that here so far. something that has stood out in our minds is that if you take a look at the beautiful white beaches, we havent seen a lot of tourists, and been a lot of empty lawn chairs and umbrellas, and in addition to that, the reason the coast guard is using this blimp in watching, we are just gliding along here on the gul...

Formation and kill the well. i dont see the introduction of mud as being a big risk. >> good news. the blimp will be taking a look over the skies of the alabama coast. only cnn brings you the critical access to this reporting. this enables them to get there more quickly so the crude can be cleaned up before it does any damage. >> rob marciano is live in orange beach. we begin this morning with amber lion, who has been granted unprecedented access to the air ship that is scheduled to lift off j...

Blimp can glide over the gulf for ten to 12 hours at a time. well be on there. thankfully theres no bathrooms on board for only six hours at a time. in addition to this, were tag teaming it today on cnn. weve got rob marciano who is going to ride on a vessel. were going to radio down to robs vessel and they will dispatch the skimmer vessels nearby to go out and clean up this oil. now, unfortunately, yesterday when the blimp was up taking a tour of the gulf, they said mostly they saw oil too clos...

[ inaudible ] we had her for a second. were going to try to get her back. as you can imagine, technology doesnt lend us to a very easy live shot. basically, what you are seeing, amber lyon up for the first time in a blimp piloted by the u.s. navy to hover over in low level, slow sailing across the gulf of mexico there looking for where that oil is and how its impacting sea life and still no audio. i was hoping we would be able to gain connection with her. well keep trying. we will try to make it...

Team is on right now. >> lets take a look and get the view from the top with amber lyon in that air ship. amber, whats the perspective from where you are? >> well, ali, this is definitely an interesting perspective, 500 feet from above the gulf of mexico. and this is why this air ship is such a valuable tool in the spotting for oil and any injured wildlife. photographer chris turner is getting a shot of that right now, right outside this window. you can literally -- the spotters lean over and lo...

But he says we should be good to go and what is super neat about this is we will just kind of be gliding over the water. well be able to -- the skimmer boats will see us in the air and head towards us whenever we spot some oil. another thing about this, a first for cnn, were trying to go live from the air. were crossing our fingers heaping that will work out okay. we have an antenna attached to the blimp and hopefully we can get some aerial shots for you. in addition to that, we should be out he...

"s.e.c. "zekes lady" on any other day is a commercial boat to take people out to fish for snapper, but now it is a command vessel in the skimming operation today, and telling other vessels what to do based on what that blimp is telling us. so a great asset into this battle that will continue to go on for weeks to come here, and the lucky thing is that we have not seen a whole lot today. and one reason for that, wolf, we have to stay a couple of miles away from the shore. and it is one of the han...

Here. the blimp itself just kind of glides over the water, and thats why the coast guard is saying its their newest tool in the tool box in this oil spill clean-up, because it can fly at low altitude and these spotters on the blimp have a clear view to the sea to see whats going on, tony. >> okay, amber, appreciate it. thank you. terrific view from robs vantage point of the blimp. last hour, we had the vantage point from inside that blimp. lets get to rob right now. and rob, is the idea here tha...