Have You Seen the Navy Blimp Lately?

Look up and you just might catch a glimpse. 

The U.S. Navy's blimp, which calls the Lakehurst portion of Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst its home base, has been spotted throughout Ocean County this week.

The blimp was spotted in Toms River on Thursday afternoon near Island Heights. On Wednesday morning, it flew over Lakehurst toward Whiting. Last month, it made an appearance near Lakehurst's baseball field during National Night Out.

If you've seen the blimp recently and were able to snap a photo, share it on Patch!

The blimp's envelope holds 170,000 cubic feet of air and the blimp can travel at speeds up to 45 knots, according to Steve Huett, director of the Navy’s Airship Systems Engineering Team.

While its home base is Lakehurst, the blimp and its crew travel all around the country conducting missions and assisting the Army and the Air Force  — which each have larger blimps — in learning about the capabilities of the airship and how those services can put it to use.

The 180-foot blimp was purchased by the Navy in 2006 and has been in use on a number of research operations and assisted in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill cleanup efforts.

More information about the blimp is available in this when it was unveiled.