We steamfolk just love our airships.
JP Aerospace ultimately plans to put one in orbit, preceeded by crewed stratospheric sky stations beginning very soon.
In the meantime, they did this over the weekend:
http://jpaerospace.com/blog/?p=3742
Absolutely incredible. Verne, Santos Dumont, and others would be happy right now, I think.
Oh, this is an airship in that RL game. Most impressive!
Wow, What a view!