Look - up in the sky! Is it a bird? Is it a plane?

  No, it's a blimp, and it's coming to a farming community in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba this summer.  It's already been to a few, in fact, as part of a 30-towns-in-30-days remote-controlled blimp tour that began May 1 in Saskatoon and concludes July 26-28 in Brandon, Man.

  The second annual Horizon Blimp Tour is being co-ordinated by agri-business company Syngenta Crop Protection Canada Inc., which manufactures and distributes Horizon herbicide.

Remote-controlled blimp is doing rounds of Prairie towns.

  In conjunction with the tour, Syngenta is awarding 30 scholarships worth $1,000 apiece to post-secondary students from farming families who study agriculture, natural science or business.  The company is also holding a photo contest, with the winner receiving $500 and publication of the best photo in Horizon advertisements.

  Stephen Barkley, the blimp's pilot, says the scholarship program is a chance for Syngenta "to give back to the farmers who work so hard," while the tour offers some fun and entertainment.  "It's been pretty good so far," says Barkley said in a telephone interview on Day 2 in Vulcan. "It's pretty much a natural reaction."

  The blimp is visiting 18 communities in Saskatchewan, eight in Alberta and four in Manitoba. The airship is a quarter-scale model - about 10.6 metres long and 2.8 metres in diameter - of an actual blimp. The remote-controlled craft can travel at about 80 km/h.

  "It takes off like a helicopter, flies like an airplane and lands like a helicopter," says Barkley, president and owner of Lac La Biche-based Remote Air Tripods (RATS) Inc., which has been contracted by Syngenta to operate the tour. "So it takes off vertically, flies forward and lands vertically.  "In each locale, Barkley and two other crew members guide it through acrobatic displays, including nosedives, hoverings and vertical takeoffs - weather permitting.

  "We stay on the ground," he adds. "We're pilots with a very tall view, if you will.   We have a camera system on it, so it allows us to see exactly what the airship is looking at. The clients or the interested party will stand beside us and we'll take a photograph, either of them or of their real estate, as they see fit.  " Barkley's internet-based firm builds blimps for people around the world and demonstrates how to fly them.

  He adds the tour allows him to get out of Lac La Biche and see more of the country.  The blimp's waystops are well off the beaten path.  Alberta stops included the towns of Hanna and Hussar. The Saskatchewan segment includes Kyle, Webb, Morse, Tugask, Pangman and Watrous, among other places. In Manitoba, they'll land in Reston, Deloraine and Killarney before arriving in Brandon.

  The crew looks for a farmer who will allow them to store the airship in a quonset hut overnight.  "Certainly, we don't have a Charles Lindbergh reception," Barkley says. "When we pull into town, it's something that is quite quiet and passive, quite honestly."  The biggest test is the wind.  "It's a challenging thing to be in this part of the world with an airship," he says. "It's a little bit smaller and we happen to have the ability to pack everything up and put it away if we have to. We can get it out of the weather, for the most part. We just have to be very cautious about what we're doing."

  Greg Jowett, head of cereals and oilseeds for Syngenta Crop Protection, says the company was pleased to add the educational scholarship fund to the tour this year.  "Through the Horizon scholarships, we aim to give back to these agricultural communities and thank local growers for their loyalty, hard work and commitment to being good stewards of the land," he said in a statement.  Eligible students must have a family involvement in a farming operation and be enrolled or enrolling in a post-secondary education program this fall.

  The deadline for submissions is Aug. 15, 2008, and winners will be selected based on academic performance, community involvement and letters of reference from members of the community.

(Monte Stewart can be reached at monte@businessedge.ca)