Ride on the America's Only Rigid Airship - Picture Gallery

[Sean Malone]

Cool pictures of a ride around San Fran on the countries only rigid structure airship.

http://home.comcast.net/~bzee1b/Zeppelin/Zeppelin.html

[Gnam]

Cool beans. They also take trips down to the Monterey/Carmel area near Laguna Seca.

[oddlycalm]

Nice. Nothing better on a nice day than some sedate tooling around in an airship. :thumbup:

oc

[datachicane]

That is incredibly cool. I've got a couple of books full of old photos of the Graf Zeppelin, Hindenburg, and GZII- some amazing and efficient technology that deserved a better fate. The Graf logged over a million miles, mostly trans-Atlantic flights, over a nine year career with a perfect safety record...

[cameraman]

As long as you can dodge the thunderstorms.

See USS Akron, Macon, Shenandoah....

[datachicane]

As long as you can dodge the thunderstorms.

See USS Akron, Macon, Shenandoah....

...IIRC, all of which were built with a ring structure without internal bracing, a design rejected early on by the engineers at Friedrichshafen.

[cameraman]

Even the one that didn't crash had the occasional bad day.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/Zr3nearvertical.jpg

No damage to speak of from that particular excursion.:eek:

[nrc]

"Herr Zeppelin - it's wonderful! It's put ballooning right back on the map."

[oddlycalm]

To me it's a question of the right tool for the job. For a fair weather joy ride with the windows open an airship a Piper Cub, an old Stinson taildragger or a hot air balloon would be my first choices. If I was in a hurry or the weather was dicey they aren't the right ride.

oc

[extramundane]

"Herr Zeppelin - it's wonderful! It's put ballooning right back on the map."

It's not a balloon, you stupid little thick-headed Saxon git!