I’m sure many of you are like me, tossing and turning at nights because you can’t figure how to properly display the AL OFT BLIMP & the DINOCO HELICOPTER … it’s just not to 1:55 scale!

If I can still do math, Wikipedia says the Goodyear Blimp is in real life 192 feet, presuming the Lightyear Blimp in the CARS world is also 192 feet long, proper scale to 1:55 should put it at about 3.7 feet long? Of course, that would price it at about $19 to $29 for a giant blimp … now if it lit up or could actually fly around the room, we might buy it but $29 for a plastic drigible is bit much … so what to do?

Well, these TOMY Gacha Vending Machines puts us closer …

They offer a lot of choices such as WINNIE THE POOH, INCREDIBLES & CARS …

This photo is pretty close to actual size. If you breath in wrong – there’s a CAR in your windpipe …

They cost about $1 each from the vending machine if you can still find it but there’s no guarantee you’ll get the full set after tossing in your $8 dollars … you can buy them on eBay but check shipping – some places rip you off. Shipping should be $3-$4 since they really weigh less than a box of tic-tacs.

But really, also not in scale as three CARS total “192 feet” of blimp – arrgghhh, why has thou forsaken all of us who worship at the altar of scale, Mattel & Tomy?

How about the Dinoco Helicopter? Well, it sort of looks like the Bell 430 (even has a painted fuselage like a smile 😉 ) but clearly not large or powerful to fit a tow truck inside (Mater) and presumably the King, Mrs. the King & Tex Dinoco … or Tex Dinoco & some of the Showgirls 🙂

The Sikorsky CH-53E Super Stallion looks like it can do the trick – capable of a payload of 32,000 lbs … that should be enough to hold a bunch of CARS (not counting the bulk space a CAR would take up versus troops and cargo) but let’s presume it’ll work. In the real world, the Sikorsky CH-53E Super Stallion is about 100 feet long or just about half the size of the blimp … so the current release of the heli is clearly too long and out of scale with the blimp … the biggest “real world” helicopter was this oddball Soviet helicopter at @121 feet – still way shorter than a Goodyear Blimp.

The Dinoco Helicopter release to scale should be about 1.6′ or so – the giant plastic one is a bit too large and the small one is too long to its 1:55 scale brethern … but maybe in the CARS world, gravity is less oppressive allowing them to build a ginormous helicopter that can fit 3-4 CARS inside?

Sure, we resolved nothing but now you know a couple things about the MH-53 Sea Dragon and the world’s largest flying helicopter, the Mil Mi-12 … and the length is size of the Goodyear blimp … and yea, I drank way too many of Jimi Hendrix’ Energy Drink.*

*No, I was too young – so while I like his music, he’s just another guitarist to me and I feel the same emotion connection as I would to Janis Joplin cough drops or a Buddy Holly cell phone sneeze guard … absolutely nothing. Though for a guy who died 40 years ago, his energy drink is quite tasty – unlike most which taste like carbonated Robitussin or contain more sugar than an actual bag of sugar – it’s quite refreshing and yes, I’m starting to hallucinate, why do you ask?