San Diego Transit Map

I'm keeping track of the ship's progress from the office via our Tracking page, but we also regularly compile that data into a mapping file. So, for all the Google Earth enthusiasts out there, here's our transit from Moffett Field, CA, Long Beach, CA, to San Diego, CA as a KML file (right-click and "Save File As" to download)!

(And Download Google Earth here for free, if you don't already have the program.)

Romance on the High Skies

Here's a clip shot from aboard the Zeppelin on a flight in the Netherlands between Valkenburg, Katwijk, Scheveningen, and Den Haag that features some great footage of:

-A teeny-tiny horse and rider on the beach (~ 2:17 in)
-A regular-sized, and very sweet marriage proposal (knee hits deck at 2:37)

New airship envelope material?

On the main waterfront street in Friedrichshafen you can find the Zeppelin Store. It stocks a more comprehensive range of goodies than the store at the Zeppelin Museum (which I understand is outsourced) and it includes some of the branded items from DZR (although I would suggest you buy those online or at their passenger facilities).

One of the rather unusual items that it stocks are Zeppelins of various sizes made in Africa out of scrap metal, usually from cans. Not sure it would get through an FAA certification....but its certainly colorful!

Cheers!

"I think there was once a blimp city brewery" said Scott, the Zeppelin pilot and airship operations consultant we’ve been spending time with. Suitably inspired, I went a-googlin’. Indeed, Blimp City Brewery once existed in Akron Ohio, but alas it is no more. You can find reviews on ratebeer.com and it seems to have produced some good beverages, but unless you find a supply somewhere, your chances of tasting it are somewhat slim.

Still in business however is the Tustin Brewing Company, and they make Blimp Hangar Porter.

But if beer is not your tipple, then perhaps you should explore Red Zeppelin wines. While we don't like their logo (we hope after we get flying the wine country and people see how safe our Zeppelin is that they might rethink), we do like the logo for one of their red wines and we really laughed at this cool picture of 'Bread Zeppelin'. We hope that they'll forgive us for putting it here and directing a little traffic to their site...

and Airships for Tea

I can see our house starting to take on overtones of an airship museum as we make it known to our friends and family that we're in the airship business. Still, at least now they have one thing to look out for when birthdays and other celebrations roll around! Hence the answer to the question - what do you buy a British gal for her birthday? An airship teapot!

Apparently these are made from the original 1920's mold and production ceased after the R101 disaster. The whole is very nicely weighted for pouring and even though the spout does look faintly ridiculous, overall it's a very pleasing pot. If you're a member of the Airship Heritage Trust in the UK, you can get a small discount if you go through their web page. Otherwise you can order direct from Racing Teapots and they ship amazingly fast and very well protected to overseas addresses. (I also like their train.)

I recommend a first flush darjeeling, Fortnum and Masons.

Red Car Syndrome

You know how once you buy a 'red XYZ car', then you suddenly see lots of them where before you hadn't noticed them, infact, everyone seems to have one....?

Well, we now spot airships.

Like this one in our local grocery store. We're not sure what message about the greatness of these oranges is conveyed by having a 785ft long airship on the packaging*, but it looks cool.

* please send in your suggestions

Luftschiff Log Entry One.

I assume that you're here because you are curious.........
possibly even slightly passionate......... about airships.
So are we.
We want one.
Enough to work out how to get one.

And we want to let people see the world from a few hundred feet above the ground. Quietly and in quality surroundings. Without being shaken around like in a helicopter, and with accurate control where you go (unlike a balloon). (Oh, and in relation to the latter mode of transportation, without having to get up at the crack of dawn as we're really not morning people.)

So we've embarked upon a journey where every day we encounter another unique circumstance, another quirky idea or thought, a new inspiration or person and of course, another piece of red tape.

We like red tape because we'll eventually BE the scissors. And we'll cut through it, drink the champagne, and say 'luftschiff hoch!'

But until that time we thought it would be fun to chronicle all these unique things that will make our journey memorable. We hope you'll enjoy it with us, and be ready to buy your ticket when we launch.