How Green is my Airship?

I came across a neat website the other day which allows you to calculate how many tonnes of CO2 you emit in aviation. It requires info on your fuel, how many liters you burn per hour and how many hours you fly per year.

I was curious about the Zeppelin NT so I ran some numbers for how much CO2 would be emitted for carrying 120 passengers and then did the same for some of the helicopters that are being used to give people tours in the San Francisco Bay Area. The helos don't carry as many people, so they have more flight hours to get to the same number. I then divided the total CO2 by the number of passengers to give me a per passenger figure (1000kg = 1 tonne for those not familiar with metric).

I realize that fuel consumption is always a moving target, but I figured that it would give me some ideas about the relative emissions of these two sightseeing methods. Interesting, but not unexpected, results.

UPDATE. Ecogeek published a fun article about green flight and airships get a mention! Thanks to Andreas at Airshipworld for spotting this.

Airships: The Big, Bad and Bold

Today we stopped by the Anderson - Abruzzo Albuquerque International Balloon Museum to meet briefly with their exhibit curator who had contacted us after seeing a press release about our airship plans. She is busy putting together a new exhibit that opens on August 12 called Airships: The Big, Bad and Bold and wanted some more information from us. She had visited Friedrichshafen but had been unable to fly the Zeppelin NT at the time, although she saw it in action.

Marilee took us into the partially completed exhibit area. There were already some gorgeous Art Deco airship prints on the walls and a tantalizing number of large model mounts waiting for a set of large scale models which we were told are being built locally. We also got to see some of the memorabilia and artifacts that will form part of this exhibit. My particular favorites were a set of ceramic zeppelins each with a British or European city coat of arms on them.

The Museum is closed on Mondays, but we were grateful for the sneak peak, and to see a 1:200 scale Graf Zeppelin that they have hanging in their main atrium. We will certainly be going back once the exhibit is open! It runs through December 31.

Wishful Thinking

Our friend, Betsy, sent us a link to an amusing zeppelin cartoon drawn by Randall Munroe. I've put a tiny clip as the image for this entry to tease you, so you'll have to click on this link to see the full cartoon.

If only.... (removes the need for ground crews...)

Being in one place

We've been surprised - pleasantly - by the number of airship folks who are contacting us with an interest in working for us. As it says on our website, we will be looking to recruit a full team and a list of the positions is given. For those of you that are following what we're up to, we thought we'd post a little more information here.

We plan on hiring only a couple of key posts before the end of the year. Virtually all other positions will be hired during the first half of next year. We are carefully keeping all resumes that are sent to us (thank you!), and will make sure that all those individuals are contacted when the relevant position openings are on the website.

In talking to some of the friendly inquirers, we've discovered that there is an appeal to working with an airship that is mostly in one place. Not that we won't ever do some travel if the event/contract is worth it, but this certainly won't be 11 months on the road. On the other hand, the cost of living in the Bay Area is a notch or two above the usual locations in North Carolina and Ohio....

Happy Birthday! Ferdinand von Zeppelin

Alles Gute zum Geburtstag! to the founder of Zeppelin. Born 8 July 1838.

Out of body experience?

We're enjoying many of the comments that are posted at the bottom of the various online news stories about us and will be posting a compendium of the ones that made us laugh in a day or so.

However we HAD to share this. A re purposing of the original CNET article was given a title that, seen through a 1960's cultural lens, fell into 'you didn't really mean that as it sounds did you' category.

Yes, folks, the "Zeppelin will give high flying tourists a trip". And you won't get arrested for it. Watch for the bumper sticker.

News comment roundup

One of the joys of online news is that people can comment on the story. We are pleased to bring you some of our favorite comments.

From Digg
Oh the huge manatee! (best to get that over with early.)

I would love to see this become a reality. I live right next to Moffett. I'd love to get a part time job on that thing just for the thrill of it.

from Topix

"...hey look up there...it's enormous and so long and hard and white...and it vibrates...I want a ride on that"...these people are BRILLIANT marketers...it didn't start over San Fran by accident...

from USA Today

Whooppeee I only like my Zeppelins full of Led....ROCK ON!!! That is such a cool idea that has been right under our noses the whole time. I hope it works.

And our favorite headline (1960’s inspired)

“Zeppelin will give high-flying tourists a trip”

A little more official

This morning in Germany Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik (ZLT) sent out our joint press release about Airship Ventures optioning Zeppelin NT serial # 04. Ours went via marketwire as soon as we woke up! You can access both German and English versions on our website here.

What does this mean? Well, it means that we have reserved it (which requires $$$) and that we fully intend to purchase the airship. It shows we're serious, very serious, and it allows us to work closely with ZLT as we continue to refine our plans. Actually, we signed the option in March this year, but we wanted to wait until we had a few things a bit further along, such as the website, before going public.

Why didn't we just wait until we were ready to buy? You know how sometimes you see something you want, and so you start saving up for it, but by the time you have all your pennies together, someone else has bought it and then you're really disappointed..? Zeppelins don't get built overnight. NT#04 is currently under construction, and we wanted to make sure we were first in line to buy it and didn't do all the work to prepare for having one only to then miss out and have to wait for the next one.

What next? We have a LOT of work to do. Our next steps involving firming up a lot of the operational details. We know there's speculation out there about where we'll be operating from (don't believe everything you read ), and people really want to know about buying tickets and so on. So, expect a few more releases and updates over the coming months.

If you are feeling even more impatient, may we suggest you check out Zeppelin tours? The photo above showing NT04's main longitudinal ribs was taken by John Christopher of Zeppelin Tours while leading a group of 'flightseers' in Friedrichshafen earlier this year. Currently Zeppelin Tours offers trips to Germany, but as you will see from their neat website, they are hoping to do more locations in the future!

Moving forward

I'm assuming that some of you visiting our blog (welcome!) are here because you found a story about us! We're excited that now we can come out of stealth mode and start to talk about more of what we are doing, even if it is a little earlier than we'd planned! The upside of being 'outed' is that now instead of my posting things once they are a done deal on this blog, you're now going to get all the gory details as they happen! We're also going to persuade a few of our team to start posting too. I hope you find some stories of interest in the archives to whet your appetite for more. And there's always our new website to check out.

Please join our mailing list so we can keep you up to date!

This wonderful image is created by Rob Walker who is doing a series for us. You'll be able to get them as notecards, postcards and T shirts in our webstore shortly.

Recruiting 'helium heads'

We're at flight school and listening to some fascinating presentations and discussions around the emerging fields of 'air taxis', very light jets, personal spaceflight, sport aviation etc. All these groups face regulatory hurdles as well as hurdles to reach market and attract investment. Heavy stuff. So we were pleased to be the 'lightweight' addition to the agenda!

Generally our ideas were well received, but we found a surprising level of negativity that relates to the perception (and in some cases, experience) that folks here have with blimps. As they generally haven't seen a Zeppelin NT, then they have no other reference. Perhaps this explains why many entrepreneurial airship ideas are struggling to find traction in the investment community - a perception of old technology, slow, unreliable etc. Something to think about in terms of marketing and education.

Fortunately we do have some advocates in the room. One of the attendees was recently in Friedrichshafen for a meeting with another aviation company based there. He said that he was traveling along when he looked up and saw the Zeppelin NT bank and turn and then start to land. He was astonished at the fact that it was so manueverable and commented to his companion that he'd never seen an airship do that. He came back to the USA and had made a note to himself that there absolutely should be one of these in Northern California.... we of course agree!

Flight School

Things have been busy, so expect a bunch of posts and news over the next month! Before then the Airship Ventures crew are bound for Flight School in Aspen, Colorado.

Contrary to the initial impression of the name, Flight School is not where we learn to fly in the traditional sense, but the combination of investors, entrepreneurs and creative thinkers that Esther Dyson is bringing together will most likely enable several of the new ideas presented to 'get off the ground'.

I'll try to blog about some of the unusual aviation related ideas that I come across, as well as people's reactions to our own venture.

Himmelstreppe

On page 4 of the wonderful book, Dr Eckners Dream Machine, the author, Douglas Botting, is describing the passengers boarding Graf Zeppelin for her round the world trip. He says "Lady Hay Drummond Hay.....wearing a cloche hat and with a fashionable stole around her neck, clambers up the short wooden gangway - Himmelstreppe, they call it, steps to heaven - shows her ticket and enters the ship".

When I first read this I stopped in disbelief. Surely it could not be a coincidence that the nickname for the boarding stair for the Zeppelin was also the name of one of the most famous Led Zeppelin songs of all time, Stairway to Heaven. Indeed, if you hunt for the German lyrics, you can see it quite clearly.

Well, dear readers, I have Googled, and searched high and low, and this would appear to be just one of those coincidences. But what a wonderful coincidence...

'Shipwreck!

Upon returning from the library the other day, my eleven year old stepdaughter, Kaitlin, proudly handed me a book she'd picked out for me to read from the young adult section. Not because she thought that I could only read young adult books, but because it had, yep, an airship on the front cover!

Airborn, by Kenneth Oppel is an entrancing tale of a cabin boy aboard the Aurora, a vast airship sailing the world in an alternative victorian-esque reality. So alternate, that the arrival of a pirate airship seems almost expected and ofcourse there are no shortages of the fictional Hydrium gas, with greater lifting power than helium and hydrogen.

I won't spoil the plot for you, but if you have teenagers that you'd like to get interested in airships, I think this would be a nice way to do it. The website is fun, and an interview with the author in the back of the book reveals someone who also appears to be wishing for the day when he could ride in the same kind of splendor that Graf Zeppelin and the Hindenburg bought to the world. Apparently the book has been optioned for a movie. I wonder if they'll need a Zeppelin to star in it...??

Airships in the Blogosphere

I like to be original about my posts, but sometimes you come across one from another blogger than you just HAVE to share. Such is this post from Airminded, a blog about mostly British air related stuff pre 1941. Apparently Hammer Films in the UK nearly made a film called Zeppelin vs Pterodactyls, a sort of 'Land that time forgot' meets 'world war one' flick. They only ever mocked up a poster for investors, but its tantalizing to think how amazing it would have been. I can just see all those rubber dinos against the painted backgrounds....

Hammer Films has just been reincarnated. Perhaps we should start a petition for this movie to be made!

'Ships Cat

Given how many blogs have already covered this fun story, I was reluctant to do so myself, particularly as, unlike some blogs, I wish to respect the ownership of the Smithsonian in the wonderful image that has been accompanying the story and hence that makes it less attractive for you to read.

What am I going on about? Well, in 1910, the airship ‘America’ attempted a transatlantic crossing. Their engineer, also a famous aerial photographer, Melvin Vaniman, decided that they would take along a kitten named Kiddo. Kiddo survived to meow the tale, even if the airship did not.

The web page with more info that has permission to publish the picture can be found here. I’m also linking to this blog that has a good picture of the America, although I don’t think its permitted. And here’s a book I found that has the Kiddo picture in it, along with lots of other wonderful trivia about animals in the air. It's called 'Animals Aloft' and is based on the Smithsonian collection.

Which leads me to comment on the main picture with this blog entry, one of our candidates for ‘ships cat. "Sir Elliot Awesome Earhair" (blame the SPCA for that name) would certainly not be the lightest cat ever to fly but he was the first of our tribe to show some moderate interest in the Zeppelin. You never know…

Thanks to Mike Farr for the original article.

Zeppelin Pilots Needed!

No, not us!

Our designer, Matthew, came across this funky website recently when he was surfing and got such a laugh out of it that he forwarded it to us. Apparently the sultanate of Okusi-Ambeno has five Zeppelin NT07’s flying for transportation and tourism. As you will see from their job openings, they also need ground crew.

Not much information about the person who decided to put this site up, but he’s clearly an airship afficionado and we suspect he’s the guy in the Fez on one of the pages. The main site is more than 10 years old but showcases a gorgeous collection of airship related stamps, covers, postcards and airship imagery.

If any airship fans out there have further information about the genesis of this site, or if it's yours, please let us know. We really enjoyed it.

Step One

Today several aviation and airship blogs reported that the FAA is underway with the airworthiness certification of the Zeppelin NT. Yes, we knew it was happening, and while there is still a ways to go, we can definitely dust off the champagne bottle, even if we don't open it yet! With the airworthiness certification process comes vast piles of paperwork covering all the attendant details and if you're interested, you can check them out here. The FAA is seeking comments on the design if you have them. While clearly we're excited to see this happening, this is only one part of the puzzle with the FAA in terms of operating a Zeppelin in the USA. More on that at some point in the future!

Sharp eyes will notice that this is Graf Zeppelin champagne. Not available in the USA (yet...) but if you are looking for goodies relating to the NT and want them now, have a look here - the Zeppelin NT webshop.

Cheers!

The Past/Future thing

It's been a busy couple of weeks - it will be fun when we're telling you about our actual day to day stuff instead of teasing you with airship miscellany.....all in good time. I'm sure I'll look back at back at this phase of the dream turning into reality with quite a bit of nostalgia in the years to come.

Which gives me a nice segue into talking about the wonderful inventions and ideas that were postulated BH (Before Hindenburg, the time when airships really fell out of favor). Take this piece from 1932 in Modern Mechanics and Inventions which tells a fascinating tale of the 'traffic dictator', the 'traffic god', that would be sitting in an airship above a football stadium after the game controlling all of the traffic lights to ease the crush of, oooh, 50,000 cars!

The blog that my friend Jim pointed me at for this inspiring invention also has some other airship related pieces on it which remind me of that superlative past/future movie, 'Sky Captain and the World of Tommorrow' with its massive aircraft carrying airship. Not so far removed from many of the heavy lifting airship ideas being worked on today!

Oh, the View! (To a Kill)

Family movie night again. This time we find the Bond movie, A View to a Kill, with a blimp (a Skyship) in a starring role. The web gives us lots of trivia about this movie, including the fact that the Skyship had been in LA for the Olympics and that enabled the movie makers to bring it to the San Francisco Bay Area for the long shots they needed for the film. I was amused to note that the fictional Zorin Industries branding was made green, red and white so that it would fit with the Fuji branding on the airship in the long shots!

But for us the captivating moments were the views of San Francisco* and the Bay taken from the airship on a beautiful sunny day. If only we could use those scenes in our presentations...!

* this is a link to the San Francisco Chronicle aerials page, many taken from blimps. It gives you the idea.

No, they don't mean Zeppelin....

Reuters put out a story on Thursday 19 April regarding the use of an airship to fight crime in Venezuela. They titled it "Venezuela launches Zeppelin to tackle rampant crime". Sensitive to anything that mentions a Zeppelin, as opposed to a zeppelin, I eagerly read down the article.

Almost immediately I realised that this was actually a remote controlled 50 ft long airship, a blimp, and a small one at that, built by Korean firm HanGIS. While these are undeniably cute (the really small one would be heaps of fun for buzzing the neighbors), Zeppelin had nothing to do with this.

Well, I guess if the venerable Reuters can get it wrong, then I shouldn't be too hard on everyone else!

PS. You owe it to yourself to check out the HanGIS page on 'How to Operate Airship'.