


Zeppelin travel has not been possible in the U.S. since the tragic catastrophe of the Hindenburg in New Jersey on May 6th, 1937.
We have of course plenty of blimps in the United States, but those are somewhat smaller and used mainly as flying advertising boards.
Now Airship Ventures is bringing a Zeppelin to the U.S. for “flightseeing” tours, media and science mission operations. Airship Ventures will be operating out of Moffett Field in the San Francisco bay Area of California. Airship Ventures’ Zeppelin NT07 airship carries up to 12 passengers and will be the largest airship flying in the US.
At 246 feet in length, it is more than 50ft longer than the largest blimp. It has been flying in Germany and Japan since 1997 with a clean safety record.
The Zeppelin NT has been manufactured since the 1990s by a company that considers itself a successor of the company founded by Ferdinand Zeppelin.
The original Zeppelins were amazing technical breakthroughs of their time. The first Zeppelin used for commercial passenger transport was manufactured as early as 1909 and by the late 1920s the Zeppelin technique had been perfected to produce the Graf Zeppelin and the Hindenburg, which offered transatlantic flights in spacious luxury accommodation for its passengers.
The only flaw, that became the tragic undoing of the Zeppelins, was the use of the highly flammable hydrogen gas. At that time the safe Helium was not widely available. Today all Zeppelins and blimps use the safe Helium gas.
Zeppelin flights by Airship Ventures will be available starting fall 2008. Enthusiasts can already now put themselves on a mailing list to be notified when tickets will become available.
For more pictures click here.
Airship Ventures
via Gizmodo