Night Flights

Some pictures from our 2 hour sunset flight this past weekend, which at this time of the year includes some time viewing the city lights.

Want to learn more? Visit our "Night Flights" page!

San Francisco International 

Looking out the Window
(feel the cool night air) 

View from the Rear Window Seating Area

Airship - Watched by a Hawk

Jim Albers shared this wonderful photo with us taken this past weekend in the Baylands Nature Preserve in Palo Alto.

Dew Tour San Francisco

Last month the Dew Tour event came to downtown San Francisco, temporarily making use of the Civic Center for a mix of extreme sports including BMX, skateboarding and freestyle motocross. The weekend of the event, October 20 and 21, we were overhead to provide the TV and live streaming aerial coverage.

From the ship, we had a great view of the city, and of the event...

Which extended into the night...

Sonoma Raceway

On our way back from Sonoma this past Sunday, we made sure that the flight path took us over the Sonoma Raceway.

An airship over a technical track is a fantastic way to experience an auto race -- you can see the whole track, hear the roar of the engines, and even smell the race from our vantage feet a bit over 1000 feet above the action.

We got some great shots of the track from the airship, and hope to find many opportunities to work with them in the future.

Meteorite Flight to Wine Country

We flew the Meteorite Flight on Friday, getting into Sonoma late in the afternoon. Over the weekend the lead scientist, Peter Jenniskens of SETI, blogged about his experiences at the SETI web site. We were able to provide two passes over the projected debris field on the trip, carrying Peter, a navigator, and a resident of Novato (Glenn Rivera) who had helped the effort last week.

Flight Path from Moffett to Sonoma with pass over projected Meteorite Path

Some pictures below -- for the full post by Peter, visit cams.seti.org

The trend line calculation of the path based on data received so far (Image courtesy cams.seti.org)

Novato-2, found by Brien Cook of Sacramento. Right photo shows a slice. (Photo courtesy cams.seti.org) 

Left to Right - Jim Albers, Glenn Rivera, Peter Jenniskens (Photo courtesy cams.seti.org)

Meteorite Flight Underway

The Marin Independent Journal calls it...

"Continuing to stalk the elusive meteor fragments, Jenniskens will catch a ride on the zeppelin "Eureka," owned by Airship Ventures, over the trajectory of the fireball Friday to see if there are crash zones for larger chunks of the meteor."

We expect to arrive to Charles Schulz Sonoma Airport late this afternoon.

Meteorite Sample

On October 17, California was treated to a second meteorite of the year. What are the chances of that?

Peter Jenniskens, astronomer at the SETI Institute, came by today to show off this recently found meteorite, and to discuss the Meteorite Flight we plan to do tomorrow. We're hoping the aerial search we do tomorrow will help researchers find additional, and hopefully larger, examples. Stay tuned!

(The flight will depart Moffett Field in the morning, and arrive to Charles Schulz Sonoma Airport in the late afternoon. We then will be doing ground tours and Wine Country flights both Saturday and Sunday).

Salt Flat Ghost Town

A handful of abandoned buildings cruising over the salt ponds.

College of San Mateo

Pretty nice campus!

GoPro San Mateo

First South Bay Night Flight

Departing for our first south bay night flight.

San Jose Airport

Beautiful at night.

Conference Center and Gardens

Getting ready for Oracle World next week?

Bay Bridge

Roberta Gonzalez from CBS checking out the bridge.

Karl the Fog

Sutro Tower meets @KarlTheFog

On Mast 755pm

What a great flight.

We'll be repeating it on Sunday!

Secrets of the Corn Maze

Petaluma Speedway

Downtown Petaluma

Go Petaluma!

Sunset

Bodega Marine Lab

Bodega Bay

Vista Point

Goat Rock

Pacific Ocean Ahead

Where the Russian River meets the ocean.

Guerneville

Guerneville setting up for tomorrow's jazz festival.

First 2 Hour

We're sailing up the Russian River on our first 2 hour ultimate zeppelin tour of Sonoma wine country. We plan to sail the river to the sea, head down the coast to Bodega Bay and then return inland to check out the wineries.

Peanuts

This is the airport that bears the name Charles Schulz after all.

Now if we could get Snoopy and the Red Baron to do a fly by that would be awesome.

While the Fokker Dreidecker is the one more commonly portrayed in lore, I'm partial to the Albatros he flew myself.

Sky Lounge at KSTS

Checking out the Sky Lounge Restaurant at the airport. Good food, nice selection of wine and beer and an outdoor patio area with a view of the airship. What more could you ask for?

Cuppa Joe

Good morning Sonoma. Even the coffee comes with a dose of Snoopy!

Russian River Valley

View from the rear window and love seat sailing up the Russian River Valley out to sea.

Blue Sky

Off to explore Sonoma.

We're Here

First departure KSTS approx. 2:10pm.