TED2009 - 'Catching Air' with Eureka, world's largest Zeppelin

Among the legendary gift bag shwag and door prizes at TED this year is a very special ride not available over North America for nearly three quarters of a century - a 12-person tour on Airship Ventures' Eureka,the world's largest and most modern Zeppelin.   

Originally, the 75 meter-long craft was scheduled to fly to Long Beach to circle over the TED conference and provide rides to TEDsters, including the door prize and a group of advisers to TEDprize winner Jill Tarter.  

But incoming storms late this week forced those plans to be abandonned.  

Instead, the company kindly offered me a flight over San Francisco Monday, including a thrilling three minutes circling 1000 feet above the Golden Gate, so I could provide photographs and film footage to TED.

The ship is the brainchild of husband-wife Silicon Valley entrepreneurs Alexandra Hall and Brian Hall, and arrived in late October in the San Francisco Bay Area, where it's housed at an airship hanger at Moffett Field, where the Navy's USS Macon and USS Akron were stationed in the mid-1930s.

The couple were inspired by a ride in a Zeppelin over Germany during the 2006 World Cup soccer championships, and the discovery of Zeppelin NT [New Technology], a new generation of rigid aluminum and carbon fiber airframes made in Friedrichshafen, Germany, the historic capital of Zeppelin construction.

The history of the airship and its journey from Germany to the United States are chronicled in the company's blog, here.  

Investors include frequent TEDsters Esther Dyson and Google co-founder Sergey Brin.

Investors

Because the airship did not make it to the LA area, which would have been its first non-transit tour to Southern California, the two-hour door prize flight will now be set in the Bay Area, for a similar tour as that pictured below.

 

Over Golden Gate, looking towards Marin.

Vessels travel under south end of Golden Gate Bridge.

 

The multi-billion dollar Eastern Span of the Bay Bridge, towards Oakland.

Downtown Oakland.

 

Palace of Fine Arts & Exploratorium.

Google-plex, with Solar PV atop roof.

 

Airship Ventures co-founder and CEO Alexandra Hall at the airship's broad rear window.

 

Eureka pilot Kate Board, the world's only female Zeppelin pilot.

Below: 

Gus Holweger, Community Ambassador for Airship Ventures, was raised in Friedrichshafen, Germany, the hometown of the Zeppelins of the 1930s, and the site of the current state-of-the-art production facilities for the Zeppelin NT:

{Photos by Sam Perry, courtesy of fellow TEDster Steve Elefant and the executives, investors and crew of Airship Ventures.}

Poster at Moffett Field HQ.