It is quite possible to make blimp envelopes yourself, but I never reached the helium tightness of industrially made balloons. Also the “valve” used by commercial balloons is hard to match in ease of use and tightness. Therefore I based my project on ready made balloons:

Two Zeppelin NT foil balloons, available at the webshop from the Deutsche Zeppelin Reederei.

A 52” blimp envelope, as common for toy RC Blimps. I actually used a 52” x 37” version with extra load bearing capacity. This allowed to add more trimming weight and removing it to compensate for helium loss over time.



A 36 or 38” round foil balloon (as sold for toy RC “flying saucer” blimps or large decorative balloons).



About 2 to 3 m2 of balloon foil (I used a type with one side in white, matching the main hull, but a silver coloured Enterprise Z would look great too).



The last to items could be replaced by an "Amazing Indoor Anti-Gravity Flying Disc", if you can find one.

Similar flying discs are available, but these are smaller and come in colourfull prints not suited for this project.



99%+ pure helium for maximum buoyancy. For small quantities I find it cheapest and easiest to have my balloons filled at the local balloon shop. Balloon Surprise in Drongen gives excellent service.

Construction material:

Some extruded polystyrene sheet (mostly known under the brand name “Depron”, about 0.5 m2 of 5-6 mm thickness and 0.5 m2 of 3 mm thickness.



about 3.5 m of 2 mm diameter glassfiber composite rod (as available from kite shops) or, even probably better probably about 1.5mm carbon composite rod.



Polystyrene contact glue. The clear type is preferred, but as I didn't have that available some camouflaging was done at the end with white acrylic paint.



Some superglue



Clear cellotape, wide and standard



Thin double sided tape (the carpet fixing type).



A printer and paper (as light as your printer accepts is best, but I used ordinary office paper)



About 50g of plasticine as trimming weight (no play dough, as this tends to dry out and lose weight)

Propulsion and control:

The propulsion and RC components should be under 40g. I used an 8g parkflyer receiver, three 6g micro servos, an extra motor from such a servo, a 10g LiPo battery and three 6.5 diameter indoor airplane propellers. To that I added , two small gears with a 1 to 3 ratio (4 is even better), some 2mm diameter carbon rod (a piece of 20 cm and one of 40 cm), an a extra small micro switc and about 2.5 m of the thinnest isolated electric wire I could find.