Zeppelin

Very thankful for the Zeppelin being at AirVenture this year! Here are a few photos I took of it: https://picasaweb.google.com/goetzman/Zeppelin

Am I the only one who was slightly disappointed by its size [Insert "That's what she said" joke here]? I was expecting some massive ship. When I got there, I thought Farmer's had just sent their blimp to hold a place for the Zeppelin when it got there!! lol

But seriously, I was really impressed by the show they put on Saturday night! That thing was awesome!!!

I believe the Zeppelin is the largest airship in the world - or at least the United States at 246ft. I guess it would be small compared to the Hindenburg at 804ft.

Let's get some terminology straight.
The Farmer's Airship (which is named Eureka by the way) is called a Zeppelin because it's made by the Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik.
It doesn't quite fit the original meaning of Zeppelin being a rigid airship on Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin's basic design
It is the largest airship of any sort operating in the US.
It is not a blimp. A blimp is a non-rigid airship. The Zeppelin NT's like this are semi-rigid.
Blimps, Zeppelins (NT and traditional), and other airships are all dirigibles (i.e., steerable lighter-than-air aircraft).

It was pretty impressive watching it do it's "high speed" and other "airship acro" passes.

FlyingRon: Thanks for the terminology information! :) - I was extremely impressed with the Zeppelin on ground and in the air! :)

Here is a few random facts: I found that the estimated cost to build the Zeppelin was $18 million. The prototype was used to find Diamonds in Africa for De Beers, the diamond company.

We rode in it! It was a lot of fun...especially hanging out the windows. The pilots were super-friendly and very willing to chat with the passengers. I would definitely recommend it, especially in the Bay Area...the windows are huge and you would get a great view of the Golden Gate Bridge etc.

I also took a ride in it. What a different, cool flying experience. The first few days of the show I would see it flying low over my house and mid week decided I needed to fly on that thing. Now I can take that off my bucket list!

Sounds like in the next few years Goodyear will be replacing their blimps with Zeppelin NT airships.

I enjoyed my Zeppelin flight, one of my big aviation "bucket list" items. As a child, both my grandmothers used to tell me stories of when their hometown in England was bombed by a Zeppelin in 1916. Then later I worked at East Fortune airfield in Scotland, which was a WW1 airship base, and the departure point when R-34 made the first east-west Atlantic crossing by air in 1919.I was very impressed with the design of the Zeppelin NT.

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Originally Posted by Fastcapy

Sounds like in the next few years Goodyear will be replacing their blimps with Zeppelin NT airships.

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That will complicate and confuse the terminology even further, because any Goodyear airship will forever be the "Goodyear Blimp" no matter what it is.

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Originally Posted by Fastcapy

I also took a ride in it. What a different, cool flying experience. The first few days of the show I would see it flying low over my house and mid week decided I needed to fly on that thing. Now I can take that off my bucket list!

Sounds like in the next few years Goodyear will be replacing their blimps with Zeppelin NT airships.

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Just be warned that if you make blimp flying a regular thing, you'll need to change your name to Slowcapy!! :p

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Originally Posted by Anymouse

Just be warned that if you make blimp flying a regular thing, you'll need to change your name to Slowcapy!! :p

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Ha. Thats a good one!