PeterSidewater

I forgot to mention the stairway that only serves as a ramp to the trapdoor for the 'silly method of killing underlings' (see trick rock that throws you into the boa constricto pond in Moonraker and the trick bridge that drops you into the piranha pool in You Only Live Twice, can you tell that this is my fav Bond flick?)

A lot of time was spent on the rediculiousness of the blimp but I disagree. In the Madlib that is a James Bond script, this is a great fit for the 'unique mode of transportation' blank (see underwaterjet ski in Thunderball, submarine car in You Only Live Twice, the missle fired from a submarine that converts to personal rocket ship in Never Say Never Again, and I could go on and on). And there is another angle too, add henchmen in black shirts, rediculious amounts of armorment, and a cool escape pod and you get a great answer to the 'over the top location' for the evil lair. This is where he has his big plot exposition meeting with his evil partners (see horse farm in Goldfinger and the secret volcano rocket launchpad in "You Only Live Twice", best ever btw). The one angle you missed that makes the blimp a poor choice is that they used it as their incredibly slow moving get away vehicle. A couple of machine gun armed Humvees or 1 helicopter with a few army guys holding handguns would pretty much make the blimp pretty useless.