Spot On Parking

Matthew sent us this photo of the forward landing gear this morning. Notice the alignment of the tire in the "park here" box. Ah, such joy for a perfectionist.

Rising to First Place -- Eureka featured in winning Aviation Week photo contest entry

Our congratulations go out to Tyson Rininger of Monterey, California who took "First Place, Commercial Category" in the Aviation Week 2009 photo contest with his spectacular photo of Eureka. In fact it looks like our own Reese Zecchin may be the one gazing out at the twilight...

A passenger on the only Zeppelin flying in the U.S., Airship Ventures’ Eureka, peers out over San Francisco Bay at twilight. Credit: TYSON V. RININGER MONTEREY, CALIF.

Happy Holidays

And all through the haus, not a creature was stirring, not even a maus...

Shadowing the Hollywood Hills

Here is a video of just one small part, albeit a fun one, of the 2 hour "Studio Tour" we do from Long Beach...

We'll be back, next offering this tour mid-January 2010.

Watch Whales, Monitor a Sensor, or Play a Game?

All this talk of adding a camera to the ship, but how would you watch it on-board?

Matthew found this great rack-mount system. It simply takes the place of a seat in our customizable cabin layout. Originally we were investigating it at the request of a client that wanted to show a movie on-board the ship. Another potential client would like to be able to do a world premiere of a video game aboard the Eureka (hope that happens!). In addition to the screen, the rack allows mounting of mission payload monitoring equipment, a computer, DVD player or even a game system.

In any case, such a versatile rack-mount will certainly be put to good use!

If you happen to have one in mind, please contact our special missions department.

Vehicular Entourage

We caught this great shot of our rolling stock on the ground at Long Beach last week.

Assembled from left to right:

- Ford Pickup with Fuel Bowser
- Passenger Van
- Mastwagen #4 (International)
- Mastwagen #1 (Mercedes)
- Maint. Trailer & workshop
- Ford Pickup (to tow maint. trailer)

We have an additional 2 pickup trucks that were not in the photo.

Reminds me of childhood days playing with Tonka Trucks. If someone has not yet made a toy mast truck, they should!

(Photo courtesy Michael Cierpka)

Fun Find - 1937 Himsl Zeppelin Roadliner

Seen by one of our merry band at the motor show today... A 1937 Roadliner, refurbished a few years back and re-christened the 1937 Himsl Zeppelin Roadliner.

Art Himsl has been doing custom cars for years, based out of Concord, California.

(Photo thanks to Matthew K.)

Hauling @$$ - 71 Knots Ground Speed

On the way from Moffett Field to Long Beach last week we had a 29 knot tail wind. Combined with our "Sunday Drive" cruise speed of 42 knots, we were doing a healthy 71 knots ground speed. Had we kicked her into "highway" maximum speed, we could have been been doing well over 90. Needless to say, we set our own internal record for the southbound transit.

We're heading back home Tuesday morning. We typically hit a head wind on the northbound route. What comes around, goes around.

L.A. Times video

We were excited to host the L.A. Times. Some lovely shots of Eureka in flight!

Hi mom! (and dad)

We have welcomed many people aboard during this spell in Long Beach who were celebrating a special occasion or fulfilling a dream to fly aboard an airship. One lucky lady was surprised by her husband with a flight and unbeknown to her, he had been in touch with us ahead of time to see if we could fly over his house as their children planned a surprise! Fortunately they lived on one of our flight routes so it was easy to accommodate.

As you can see, the children created a unique surprise - a big hello that could only be easily seen by Zeppelin!

I see a trend happening....

Etched in Time -- Zeppelin Art on the Queen Mary

Michael (Ground Crew Chief) found this while exploring the Queen Mary.

VTOL Pilots

Jim swapping tips with Frank Robinson, founder of Robinson Helicopters.

Hello Goodyear

Always a pleasure to see the Goodyear Blimp!

NBC Los Angeles - "Your Eureka Moment Has Arrived"

Chuck Henry of NBC Los Angeles joined us on the transit down, and shortly after published this story and video (below).

Tailgate Party

A little post-flight BBQ on the field.

Have tape, will measure

Matthew demonstrating the new camera mounting bracket and clearance available to carry the larger camera balls.

Wheels Down, 5:12pm, Long Beach

Griffith Observatory

Reminds me of The Rocketeer...

Hollywood

Good to be back!

NBC Studios and Jay Leno Racetrack

The multi-color racetrack below is outside the studio where they film the Jay Leno show.

Santa Barbara

We just did a hover in place and 360 rotation to say hello to the tower and field at Santa Barbara. If all goes well, we'd like to try an operation here on a future SoCal trip. They have a wonderful Spanish Mission revival style main terminal and are right on the gorgeous coast.

Long Beach, here we come!

We're getting ready to head down to Long Beach for our fourth visit to LA of the year.

We'll be operating from the Long Beach airport, doing 1 hour flightseeing tours of Long Beach (Queen Mary, Sea Launch, Long Beach Harbor, Aquarium of the Pacific), 2 hour tours covering LA and Hollywood, 2 hour coastal tours down to San Clemente (we often get lucky and spot whales!), and for the first time -- romantic city light night flights to downtown LA and 30 minute "taste of zeppelin" tours (which internally I refer to as the "tease of zeppelin", as 30 minutes isn't nearly enough!)

If you are in the area, we're having an arrival party/cocktail hour at Ristorante da Vinci Weds evening. We'll have Chuck Henry of KNBC among our transit passengers, covering the awesome journey down some of the most amazing scenerey the California Coast has to offer. Our trip down is sold out, but we do have seats available on the northbound return trip next week.

Please come enjoy good company and witness her arrival this Wednesday (18th) from 4 – 7PM. Not only will you have the best view of the Zeppelin's landing from da Vinci's third-story balcony looking directly onto the airfield, you can enter to win a complimentary flight for two onboard the airship and meet the crew of the Eureka, who will join the party to mingle and answer questions once the ship has landed.

If you call Southern California home, we hope to see you this week!

Paper Airplanes

Paper Airplanes? Well, a paper aviation camera at least!

We started work a few weeks back on adding a camera mount to the ship. Once installed, we'll be able to act as a traffic 'copter, do movie/TV shoots, cover sports events, research marine mammals, or any of a thousand other cool things our stable platform will allow us to do.

Compared to other aerial platforms (primarily helicopters), we have amazing endurance (all day without refueling), lots of room in the gondola (so not only the camera operator can be on board, but also associated producers/researchers/etc), a restroom ('nuff said), and the ability to carry food and other supplies (useful for all day missions).

KRON4 Takes the Geek Tour

Gabriel Slate, the KRON4 Technology Reporter did his Tech Talk segment last week profiling our Silicon Valley Geek Tour aboard the Eureka. We had a great time checking out (among many other places) Apple at 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino, the Emerald City of Oracle in Redwood Shores, Google HQ in Mountain View, and the linear accelerator at Stanford.

He even got a little "zep-head".

All in a days work for Gabriel. See the video below.

You can take your own Geek Tour, just click here.

Snoopy and the Red Baron

The Metlife Blimp is in town, and we caught these photos today from the Eureka.

Selling detergent (really..)

A few weeks ago, we were part of the props for a commercial for laundry detergent that is sold in Denmark (washing powder in English). The finished web movie is now online along with interviews with some of the actors. Two of them were shot with the airship so you can see that she still had the 23andMe branding on.

It doesn't help us tell people to buy tickets, but it certainly raises awareness! In case you were wondering, the real pilot in these sequences is Katharine Board, who had to supervise these guys all day on the airfield.

Bay Crossings - An "Air-Raising Experience"

We're on the cover of the November issue of Bay Crossings

They call it an "Air-Raising Experience".

Perhaps they got some zep-head?

Airship Ventures is a company that provides the opportunity to take a leisurely trip in a Zeppelin NT over the San Francisco Bay.

Searching for the Right Gift

Dennis Kane shared with us this home video of his search for the right birthday gift. His father, recently turned 90, was a B-17 pilot and never lost his love of flying. We're honored to have been able to have made this a very happy birthday for him!

Dad's 90th Birthday from dennis kane on Vimeo.

An Empty Bay Bridge

Something you don't see very often -- a very empty Bay Bridge.

Checking the Warp Core

From Chief Inspector Matthew Kilkerr:
"[During an inspection of] the main fitting between the aft landing gear and the internal structure ... to help double check ... we used Magnaflux Zyglo and black light."

And it ended up looking like something straight out of Star Trek™!

Eureka Shows Her Stuff

Just found this video of Eureka taken by a visitor to the recent San Francisco Fleet Week 2009 air show.

Pilots Jim, Kate and Hans-Paul had a great time coming up with our act.

Among the maneuvers you can see in this video:
- Approach and brake in place
- Rotate in place (at 0:30)
- "Waggle" (at 1:30)
- "Nose Dive" (at 2:05)

We hope everyone enjoyed it!

Bisecting a Runway

It doesn't happen every day, but often we get permission to fly over an airport. When we do, you end up with amazing photos like these -- watching a jet land right beneath you!

(Photos courtesy Michael Cierpka)

Foggy Sunday Morning

Ground Crew Chief Michael Cierpka sent us these fantastic shots of the ship coming out of the hangar into the fog this morning.

Great Moments in Text Messaging

As she flew over their practice field the other day, Eureka received a special text message from the Los Gatos High School Marching Band. Band members sprinted into formation to spell the word "HI."

Well done! What else can you do? Do you take requests? (Hint: marriage proposal formation freelancing!)



And, not to rain on their parade (yes, marching band pun), but check out this message, part of Nancy Regan's "Just Say No" campaign, circa 1988, performed right here in front of our building* at Moffett Field!


Image courtesy of Moffett Historical Museum.

* Check it out - we used to have a big blue awning in our main entryway!

Special Missions track

Today the airship is doing a 12 hour 'special mission', internally known as "operation velcro". Full details later this week!

Man the ropes

Hangar entry the manual way!

They let anyone on board these days...

A fireman, a man in a skimpy speedo, a captain, a construction worker covered in baby oil.....? If "Eureka" could blush, I'm sure she would have done.
Just one of the weird and wonderful things we end up doing on those blue 'special operations' days that you see on our flight calendar.

Practice, practice...

Rehearsing for Fleet Week this morning!

"That never happens in Flint."

Michael Moore was in San Francisco yesterday promoting his new movie "Capitalism: A love story" when "Eureka" flew over. The photographer of this great image, Eddie Codel, relayed that Michael said "That never happens in Flint" in reference to the Michigan city that is the HQ for General Motors and appears in many Michael Moore documentaries - presumably because it is his birthplace!

Anyway, we like to see that we can grab the attention of people who are used to grabbing all the attention themselves.

Airships and iPhones

Earlier this week, the Apple iPhone webpage posted a profile on Airship Ventures as a business that uses iPhones. There are some wonderful shots of "Eureka" as well as our operations.

You'll have to click on the link above to get to the video.

Enjoy!

Whale of a time...

Yesterday all the flights were amazed by the marine life we could see from the airship. Jim took this amazing close up picture of a blue whale with the shadow of the airship. Magical!

Buzzing the LA County Fair