Have a heart?

We're kicking around the idea of doing something fun for Valentines Day...

Local Boy Makes Good

Our own Dustin Kimmel appeared in the Pontiac Daily Leader this weekend. You can take the boy out of Pontiac (IL), but you can't take Pontiac out of the boy.

Our crew, waiting at Tustin!

We better NOT need a crash crew!

Airship Art

Portion of a frieze at the airport...

I see you

Headed to San Diego on United, I saw the airship below!

(Click the picture for a hi-res version, where you can see the airship over the green, a bit to the left of the center of the picture)

Long Day -- Back at LGB

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.)

Enroute to Torrey Pines

The ship departed Long Beach about 9am. We expect to be at Torrey Pines about 11am. Woot!

No more light

Gorgeous sunset

Santa Maria

The setting sun is turning the Farmers Airship golden as we cross
Santa Maria.

Morro Rock

Heading inland to San luis obispo and Santa maria to show off the
Farmers Airship. It is a beautiful afternoon.

San Simeon

We were asked to stay offshore for awhile. Now bringing the Farmers
Airship over towards Hearst Castle.

Route 1

The end of the clouds

Passing Monterey

Half Moon Bay

Sunshine! The fog filled Bay left behind! Half Moon Bay gets a look at
the Farmers Airship!

City by the Bay

To escape the bay we've had to fly north first, so the Farmers Airship
will be the first to actually do SF to LA!!

Breaking through

A blue patch of sky shows us a way and we spiral up to clear skies
with fog below. Can't really do this scene justice. One of the
passengers jokes that we're growing adventures aboard the Farmers
Airship!

Foggy morning

Farmers Airship is on it's way to LA after finding a hole in the fog!

And they're off!

Luftschiff Lös

The command is given to come off the mast...

Farmers Airship - Out of the Hangar

The Vinyl Countdown Part 3 - The Deliverance

Our 8am special delivery has arrived...

(Thanks Dustin!)

Vinyl Destination

Thanks to the miracle workers at Signs America / Sign*O*Rama, Marty & Mike, we chopped up our precious vinyl in no time and had it ready to adhere to the ship. Here's what it looked like:

Cutting Vinyl

Dustin has been over at the sign shop, getting the vinyl cut.

Here is a small clip (below) of the process from early this morning.

Only several dozen more panels to go!

Thinking Outside the Box

Jeremy and the crew have had to think outside the box in the past week to get the job done.

-- Matthew K.

The Vinyl Countdown Part 2 - The Arrival

The Vinyl Countdown

Ever try to find a roll of several hundred feet of tomato red vinyl? That you need same day. Probably not.

But Dustin was on it and managed to locate 4 rolls, 160 feet each, of the precious material Friday afternoon.

One roll was located locally, the other 3 down in LA.

Saturday afternoon, Michael C. picked them up in LA and they made their way up to base.

We'd embarked on The Vinyl Countdown

Next up... Sunday begins the manufacture process!

Naked After the Storm

We were out flying today (sold out!) for the first time this week after a series of big storms had hit the California coast.

Alot was going on today...

- A birthday party for a lucky 10 year old boy and his friends and family
- We had our eyes open for the site of a plane crash in the hills above Stanford.

Sharp eyes will notice the ship was flying naked (unbranded) for the first time in quite a while.

Hmm... What next?

Testing the storage bags

From Jeremy comes this photo of one of our helium storage bags being test inflated with air in preparation for our annual maintenance starting next month (scheduled for Feb 21 thru March 21).

During the annual we will be removing over 7000 cubic meters of helium from the ship to these bags, supporting the ship with a bracing system, performing an airframe inspection from inside the envelope (filled with air at that time) and then returning the helium back to the ship.

Sightseeing for Four - Doll Style!

Otis wasn't the only kid aboard Eureka today...

Lauren and Grace Dundee brought their dolls along. Lauren brought Samantha, and Grace brought Julia. Both the dolls have traveled all over the world with the Dundee family, and Samantha got to fly the airship today!

Samantha and Julia loved their flight with the Dundees.

What is your dream, and when will you fly with us to make it come true?

(Photos and text for the blog thanks to Herr Cierpka and Mr. Metzler)

The Otis Blimp

We had a lot of fun on our 30 minute Taste of Zeppelin flight today in Long Beach. Young Otis Birnbaum came to fly with his blimp costume on and he had a great time. The whole crew enjoyed his costume and his enthusiasm for airships.

Otis fell in love with airships when he saw the Goodyear Blimp flying over the Oscars in Hollywood at the age of one and a half. Otis had a blimp cake for his second birthday, and then when he needed to decide what to be for Halloween, what else would a two year old want to be than a blimp?

Otis' dream came true today when he got to fly aboard the magical Eureka, a machine of dreams for kids of all ages.

About.com: Zeppelin Tour Over Hollywood

On one of our recent trips to LA, Kayte Deioma of About.com flew with us. She had previously covered our Long Beach tour.

The result is the engaging story and photo gallery of her experience on our Sunset Studio Tour flight, which you can check out over at About.com.

Highlights of the tour included Universal Studios Hollywood, Downtown LA, Dodger Stadium, the Hollywood Sign, Jay Leno Racetrack, UCLA, Beverly Hills Hotel, Playboy Mansion, and to cap it off, a picture perfect sunset over Santa Monica, and the lights of LA coming on as her cruise came to a conclusion.

We regularly offer this tour on our visits to Los Angeles, with bookings available for our next visit to LA in February.

(Photos copyright Kayte Deioma)

Avalon

Island Airport

Two Harbors

Catalina, here we come!

Today is our first test run to experiment with a Catalina Island tour.
Based on this trip, we'll decide the best way to present it
commercially on a future visit of Eureka to Long Beach.

Cranes in the Mist

Long Beach Harbor

Dusk Arrival at Long Beach

Malibu

Nojoqui Pass

Hearst Castle

Ships Mascot for the Trip

Our mascot for the trip enjoys a coastal view.

Coffee Delivered - Clear for takeoff

Headed for Long Beach

Halophiles - ABC7 Reports on use of Airship Eureka by SETI

Wayne Freedman of KGO-TV ABC7 recently covered the use of Eureka as a science platform for SETI, studying halophiles in the salt ponds of the bay.

Be sure to check out the video. Among other things, it explains the different colors we observe in the salt ponds from the air. Ranging from green (low salinity) to orange, all the way to pink -- high salinity.

Interested in discovering these views for yourself? Most of our flights from Moffett Field spend at least a portion of the journey over the salt ponds.

Happy New Year

Spot On Parking

Matthew sent us this photo of the forward landing gear this morning. Notice the alignment of the tire in the "park here" box. Ah, such joy for a perfectionist.

Rising to First Place -- Eureka featured in winning Aviation Week photo contest entry

Our congratulations go out to Tyson Rininger of Monterey, California who took "First Place, Commercial Category" in the Aviation Week 2009 photo contest with his spectacular photo of Eureka. In fact it looks like our own Reese Zecchin may be the one gazing out at the twilight...

A passenger on the only Zeppelin flying in the U.S., Airship Ventures’ Eureka, peers out over San Francisco Bay at twilight. Credit: TYSON V. RININGER MONTEREY, CALIF.

Happy Holidays

And all through the haus, not a creature was stirring, not even a maus...

Shadowing the Hollywood Hills

Here is a video of just one small part, albeit a fun one, of the 2 hour "Studio Tour" we do from Long Beach...

We'll be back, next offering this tour mid-January 2010.

Watch Whales, Monitor a Sensor, or Play a Game?

All this talk of adding a camera to the ship, but how would you watch it on-board?

Matthew found this great rack-mount system. It simply takes the place of a seat in our customizable cabin layout. Originally we were investigating it at the request of a client that wanted to show a movie on-board the ship. Another potential client would like to be able to do a world premiere of a video game aboard the Eureka (hope that happens!). In addition to the screen, the rack allows mounting of mission payload monitoring equipment, a computer, DVD player or even a game system.

In any case, such a versatile rack-mount will certainly be put to good use!

If you happen to have one in mind, please contact our special missions department.

Vehicular Entourage

We caught this great shot of our rolling stock on the ground at Long Beach last week.

Assembled from left to right:

- Ford Pickup with Fuel Bowser
- Passenger Van
- Mastwagen #4 (International)
- Mastwagen #1 (Mercedes)
- Maint. Trailer & workshop
- Ford Pickup (to tow maint. trailer)

We have an additional 2 pickup trucks that were not in the photo.

Reminds me of childhood days playing with Tonka Trucks. If someone has not yet made a toy mast truck, they should!

(Photo courtesy Michael Cierpka)

Fun Find - 1937 Himsl Zeppelin Roadliner

Seen by one of our merry band at the motor show today... A 1937 Roadliner, refurbished a few years back and re-christened the 1937 Himsl Zeppelin Roadliner.

Art Himsl has been doing custom cars for years, based out of Concord, California.

(Photo thanks to Matthew K.)

Hauling @$$ - 71 Knots Ground Speed

On the way from Moffett Field to Long Beach last week we had a 29 knot tail wind. Combined with our "Sunday Drive" cruise speed of 42 knots, we were doing a healthy 71 knots ground speed. Had we kicked her into "highway" maximum speed, we could have been been doing well over 90. Needless to say, we set our own internal record for the southbound transit.

We're heading back home Tuesday morning. We typically hit a head wind on the northbound route. What comes around, goes around.

L.A. Times video

We were excited to host the L.A. Times. Some lovely shots of Eureka in flight!

Hi mom! (and dad)

We have welcomed many people aboard during this spell in Long Beach who were celebrating a special occasion or fulfilling a dream to fly aboard an airship. One lucky lady was surprised by her husband with a flight and unbeknown to her, he had been in touch with us ahead of time to see if we could fly over his house as their children planned a surprise! Fortunately they lived on one of our flight routes so it was easy to accommodate.

As you can see, the children created a unique surprise - a big hello that could only be easily seen by Zeppelin!

I see a trend happening....

Etched in Time -- Zeppelin Art on the Queen Mary

Michael (Ground Crew Chief) found this while exploring the Queen Mary.

VTOL Pilots

Jim swapping tips with Frank Robinson, founder of Robinson Helicopters.

Hello Goodyear

Always a pleasure to see the Goodyear Blimp!

NBC Los Angeles - "Your Eureka Moment Has Arrived"

Chuck Henry of NBC Los Angeles joined us on the transit down, and shortly after published this story and video (below).

Tailgate Party

A little post-flight BBQ on the field.

Have tape, will measure

Matthew demonstrating the new camera mounting bracket and clearance available to carry the larger camera balls.

Wheels Down, 5:12pm, Long Beach

Griffith Observatory

Reminds me of The Rocketeer...

Hollywood

Good to be back!

NBC Studios and Jay Leno Racetrack

The multi-color racetrack below is outside the studio where they film the Jay Leno show.

Santa Barbara

We just did a hover in place and 360 rotation to say hello to the tower and field at Santa Barbara. If all goes well, we'd like to try an operation here on a future SoCal trip. They have a wonderful Spanish Mission revival style main terminal and are right on the gorgeous coast.

Long Beach, here we come!

We're getting ready to head down to Long Beach for our fourth visit to LA of the year.

We'll be operating from the Long Beach airport, doing 1 hour flightseeing tours of Long Beach (Queen Mary, Sea Launch, Long Beach Harbor, Aquarium of the Pacific), 2 hour tours covering LA and Hollywood, 2 hour coastal tours down to San Clemente (we often get lucky and spot whales!), and for the first time -- romantic city light night flights to downtown LA and 30 minute "taste of zeppelin" tours (which internally I refer to as the "tease of zeppelin", as 30 minutes isn't nearly enough!)

If you are in the area, we're having an arrival party/cocktail hour at Ristorante da Vinci Weds evening. We'll have Chuck Henry of KNBC among our transit passengers, covering the awesome journey down some of the most amazing scenerey the California Coast has to offer. Our trip down is sold out, but we do have seats available on the northbound return trip next week.

Please come enjoy good company and witness her arrival this Wednesday (18th) from 4 – 7PM. Not only will you have the best view of the Zeppelin's landing from da Vinci's third-story balcony looking directly onto the airfield, you can enter to win a complimentary flight for two onboard the airship and meet the crew of the Eureka, who will join the party to mingle and answer questions once the ship has landed.

If you call Southern California home, we hope to see you this week!

Paper Airplanes

Paper Airplanes? Well, a paper aviation camera at least!

We started work a few weeks back on adding a camera mount to the ship. Once installed, we'll be able to act as a traffic 'copter, do movie/TV shoots, cover sports events, research marine mammals, or any of a thousand other cool things our stable platform will allow us to do.

Compared to other aerial platforms (primarily helicopters), we have amazing endurance (all day without refueling), lots of room in the gondola (so not only the camera operator can be on board, but also associated producers/researchers/etc), a restroom ('nuff said), and the ability to carry food and other supplies (useful for all day missions).

KRON4 Takes the Geek Tour

Gabriel Slate, the KRON4 Technology Reporter did his Tech Talk segment last week profiling our Silicon Valley Geek Tour aboard the Eureka. We had a great time checking out (among many other places) Apple at 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino, the Emerald City of Oracle in Redwood Shores, Google HQ in Mountain View, and the linear accelerator at Stanford.

He even got a little "zep-head".

All in a days work for Gabriel. See the video below.

You can take your own Geek Tour, just click here.

Snoopy and the Red Baron

The Metlife Blimp is in town, and we caught these photos today from the Eureka.

Selling detergent (really..)

A few weeks ago, we were part of the props for a commercial for laundry detergent that is sold in Denmark (washing powder in English). The finished web movie is now online along with interviews with some of the actors. Two of them were shot with the airship so you can see that she still had the 23andMe branding on.

It doesn't help us tell people to buy tickets, but it certainly raises awareness! In case you were wondering, the real pilot in these sequences is Katharine Board, who had to supervise these guys all day on the airfield.