Sky's the limit with thermal airship ads

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- A Valley advertising company is hoping to attract attention from the sky.

Chris Boling is selling ad space, "Bigger than any billboard you can buy," he added.

It fits in a bag but it's built for the sky. Chris calls it "Alex" and he said, "You can't look away when you see this thing, on the ground or up in the air."

"Alex" is a thermal airship. It runs on hot air and it 142 feet long, nearly half the size of a football field. It's also pretty rare, so rare, few people can fly it. Barry Birch is one of them, "There's literally a handful of us, maybe less than 20 guys in the whole world," he said.

Chris is learning how to fly it but in the meantime, he's focused on marketing. He owns an advertisement company, aptly named Boling Air Media. His plan, is to fly ads above the Valley on the side of the ship and catch attention from the ground, "People are so fascinated by them, kids love them," he said.

He says it's also cost effective. Most airships run on helium, which can be expensive and they can't get tucked into a bag, "We deflate down, we go into a small toy trailer, we can tow it from location to location."

As for the price of the ad space on "Alex," Chris says it varies, depending on the length of a campaign but he's estimating $2,200 dollars per flight hour.