Sunday, May 24, 2009

Pit Stop!

On long days of flying, we schedule a refuel just over halfway through the day. While Eureka can exchange passengers without the mast, for safety at refueling, she is masted. At Long Beach we are operating with the mast truck fixed in place, so rather than the truck driving to the airship - as happens everywhere else we operate - the pilot has to land and then drive the airship across the ground to the mast!!

In this sequence of photos you can see the unusual event of Carole from Guest Services lending a hand to hold the nose line while Matt (our trainee crew chief) guides the pilot to bring the ship close enough to attach the winch line. The airship is then winched onto the mast with a crewman using the mast head remote control.

Zeppelin crew chief Chris keeps a watchful eye!

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