Columnist Mark Purdy gives us a shout out as the "local team" in the upcoming Rose Bowl this Monday.
Mark had the chance to speak with Will Spivey, mechanic/inspector (and former defense for San Jose State Spartans), and Ben Travis, Pilot for the story.
As to who will end up on top - Wisconsin Badgers or Oregon Ducks - we shall soon know!
Will Spivey, mechanic/inspector for Airship Ventures, with a camera adaptor ring that is used when the zeppelin hovers over sporting events providing TV coverage. At Moffett Field in Mountain View Wednesday Dec. 21, 2011.
The crew that flies the zeppelin will be flying over the Rose Bowl game on January 2nd providing TV coverage.
(Photo by Patrick Tehan/Mercury News)
A good way to start the day - a cup of coffee and Eureka on the front page of the paper. We are here in Long Beach thru the middle of next week offering passenger flights and to provide aerial tv coverage of the Rose Bowl.
The DGLR (Germany Society for Air and Space Travel) held an airship workshop in Aachen, Germany last month.
To coincide with the event, a group of European airship modelers held an "Airship Regatta" at the same time. Past events have taken place all over Germany, as well as in the UK and Italy.
If you would be interested in seeing a similar event take place in the United States, either to participate with a design, or as a spectator to watch the airships compete, let us know via a comment to the blog.
A Full House for Airships to the Arctic at the Edgewater Hotel
A number of us (Joanne, Francis and myself) are in attendance this week at the Airships to the Arctic conference in Seattle. Earlier today we presented our experiences and lessons learned during the "Farmers Airship Covering Communities" coast to coast tour this past summer. Tomorrow Francis (special missions manager) will be doing a presentation on airship flight simulators and our LTA pilot training program.
The conference is a gathering of airship operators, airship vendors, government agencies, and commercial customers looking at the challenges and opportunities of operating airships in the arctic, with a particular focus on Alaska and the northern territories of Canada.
Last month, a 20 foot working model of the Macon built by Jack Clemens was flown in our hangar at Moffett Field.
There was nice coverage by the San Jose Mercury News as well as other local news outlets.
After two prior attempts -- one was destroyed by his pet cat, one drifted away on a test flight -- this was the 3rd model that he had made, and fortunately for all of us, it was a success.
Over the holiday weekend one of the followers of our facebook page posted the story of their airship flight using a cool web site/tool called "Pixton". Pixton lets you create your own comic strips online with pictures you upload, and characters you create and then arrange to tell a story.
The new video trailer for Grand Theft Auto V by Rockstar Games features appearances by an airship. You can spot it in the background over the city several times. A few of those times, it looks like it could be the Goodyear Blimp. A few other times, it looks long and slender, like it could be Eureka. As both airships sail the skies of LA, could be either! But we have our favorite.
Check out the video and see which airship YOU think it is!
Scan for it at the following points -- 00:17 over the golf course, 1:04, 1:09, and 1:11 above the city.
Last week in San Antonio, the crew came across this true classic -- a 1969 fuel truck built on a Ford chassis with tank by Newberry Tanks & Equipment Company. Even better, Newberry is still around, and made the tank for our own fuel bowser back in 2008.
Troy with a Classic (our modern one in the background)
"This is a very good video of the "airship" Eureka on it's visit to Milwaukee. Data about the craft, Stills, and time lapse of the day at Timmerman airport. One time lapse covers 11 hours."
FlightGear is an open source flight simulator, and has had a Zeppelin NT in it for a while now. It runs on many platforms, including Android, iPhone/iPad, Mac OS and Windows.
For September, the Zeppelin NT was selected "Aircraft of the Month" and featured in a demo video.
Want to have it seen in Google Maps and Google Earth?
Public Relations and Marketing firm Phillips and Company recently did a press release announcing a service called Blue Marble, where they put a QR code on your roof, then make sure it gets into Google Earth and Google Maps.
Well if you can do it from earth orbit, why not 1000 feet?
We'll see what they have to say!
(Thanks go to Android Central for the image and first place I saw the story...)
Moon Express, one of the entrants in the Google Lunar X-Prize, used Eureka twice from April to July to flight test a radar altimeter they are working on.
Internally, we nicknamed the test platform the "cow bells", but that playful name doesn't do justice to the serious part it will play in their quest to reach the moon.
"Radar provides autonomous landing spacecraft with crucial ranging information to the surface and has been one of the most challenging and high risk elements of all lander systems. Radar systems have also been historically very expensive in terms of dollars, mass and energy. As part of its risk reduction engineering activities, Moon Express initiated a program to continue the development, test and space qualification of an innovative, low cost, low mass, low energy radar concept invented by Stellar Exploration that showed great promise through progressive developments under NASA Small Business Innovation and Research (SBIR) programs. The Moon Express investment significantly advanced the radar technology toward spaceflight readiness." -- Moon Express
Watch their latest video on the project , and see how they took advantage of our appearance at the EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, to complete testing of the project.
Our flight schedule posed some challenges, in that they had to get their monitoring equipment small enough to be carried during our normal operations. However it also presented opportunity in that they were able to check the data between each flight during the passenger exchange, refine their algorithms with the data from the previous flight, and upload new code!
In an email from the EAA today, the newsletter included a link to this video telling a bit of the history of NAS (Naval Air Station) Richmond located in Florida. NAS Richmond was one of the many blimp bases built along the east and west coast of the US during WW2, and perhaps the largest.
To learn more about Naval Air Station Richmond and the history of naval airships, visit the Gold Coast Railroad Museum page on the topic at gcrm.org/naspage.aspx
This isn't the first time a Zeppelin has visited Ft. Worth. Back in October 1928, the USS Los Angeles, built in Germany, flew over downtown Ft. Worth. Yesterday, Eureka posed for a similar picture, 73 years later. You'll notice she is a bit higher over the building -- these days we have rules to follow regarding altitude!
Thanks go to Bob Adams and the B-36 Peacemaker Museum for helping us recreate a historic image of the first Zeppelin visit to Ft. Worth in 1928. If you're in the D/FW area, stop by the museum to learn about the city's Zeppelin history.
When in Oklahoma... Drink Zeppelin Beer? Matthew found this gem on our recent stay in the OK state.
"A unique spin on a classic style, this spicy wheat ale starts with a blend of Maris Otter, white wheat, and a hint of rye, which is then infused with Cascade hops and fermented on German Hefe’ yeast. Notes of clove and banana can be found along with hints of spice from the rye."
Taking a walk in Germany recently, I came upon a memorial at the location of an old V2 production facility and associated forced labor camp in Friedrichshafen. The parts not already having been destroyed by allied air attacks during the war, were removed by the French after the war. It is today forest and field. Like many other German companies during that period, Zeppelin was pressed into service in support of the war effort, and contributed to the testing and production of the V2 ballistic missile (also known by the German Army designation A4, for "Aggregat-4").
