ON FLYING A ZEPPELIN AGAIN

BLUE SKIES AGAIN

As a long-time aviation geek, I've been fascinated by Airships for decades. 

But unless you had a good friend at the Goodyear company, it wasn't possible for mere mortals to get a ride on one of these until this past month. 

Airship Ventures is a new company in the San Francisco/Bay area that is offering Airship rides to mainstream passengers for the first time in decades.  And it's in a whole new Zeppelin no less, the name that's been associated with Airships for most of the 20th century. 

More from this CNET story last month:

"For residents of the San Francisco Bay Area, that's about to change. A company called Airship Ventures is bringing just such an aircraft to its new home at Moffett Field in Mountain View, Calif., sometime in the coming days.

Sightseeing flights (the company calls it "flightseeing") will start later this month from Mountain View and in early November from several other locations, with ticket prices starting at $495 per person...

This photo shows the Airship Ventures Zeppelin on its maiden flight in May over Friedrichshafen, Germany.

(Zeppelins, also sometimes known as dirigibles, have a rigid frame that provide the distinctive, cucumberlike shape, and a soft material such as canvas is wrapped around the frame. Blimps and balloons, by contrast, have no framework and get their shape directly from the internal pressure of the gas providing the lift.)"

This 2 minute video review of the ride gives a better sense of what it feels like in a Zeppelin 2.0:

The story of how the company got founded is also a good one, involving the passions and hard work of a husband and wife team, Brian and Alexandra Hall.

I for one am looking forward to a Zeppelin ride on a future trip to the Bay area.

Comments

[Alex Tolley]

I saw and photographed this airship flying oven Mountain View last week. Quite beautiful. It's great that it is being floated as a passenger carrying vehicle for tourist rides. But realistically this is an iffy proposition. Airships work fine on calm days, but wind and rain stop flights. We'll see how the company handles flight cancellations for unexpected weather even during the predictable west coast summer.

I think the airship is still looking for a good role to play. So far in it's history since aircraft came to prominence, it hasn't really found one.