I’ve had the great fortune to fly many different aircraft ranging from Cubs to a Stearman to a Citation, but I’ve never had a ride like today’s trip in the Farmer’s Insurance Airship. Named Eureka, it’s owned and operated by Airship Ventures of California and is the largest airship on the planet. Built by Germany’s Zeppelin corporation, it’s big, it’s fast, it’s nimble, and it’s waiting for you to take a ride in it.
I caught up with the Farmer’s Airship at West Chicago’s DuPage Airport (DPA) during one of it’s stops in their “2011 Covering Communities Tour” where I found it moored to a 32 ton truck. In reality, Eureka caught up to me since I had seen it just the week before turning heads and offering rides at EAA’s Airventure in Oshkosh Wisconsin. Every day, I’d look away from the show line in hopes of seeing Eureka’s graceful departure or it’s near silent return. Fortunately, most sunsets included it’s giant silhouette. Whenever it was around, it was surrounded by the most appreciative audience it will ever see. I sure do hope it returns often to Airventure.
Now it’s a week later and I’m back to my home west of Chicago. Today, it was finally my turn to step aboard. After a simple security screen, I climbed the air stairs and found out there were just 11 of us including a two person crew who’s office is a gondola made up almost completely of glass. I can’t possibly relate how nice the view is as none of the pictures I’d seen before did it justice and my photos are the stuff of amateurs. The reality is that you can see the horizon in all directions with very few obstructions. The biggest hindrance is the on-board bathroom which, yes, has a window of it’s own. You must try it out just to say you did.
As with most aircraft, the best view is reserved for the Pilots. Our captain was a German man with a thick accent who was both professional, welcoming, and full of smiles. Of course, who wouldn’t be smiling if they got to fly this thing around all the time? It was obvious the pilot and the crew love their job and that joy infected the passengers. Everyone had a great time as the pilot easily maneuvered us around Chicago’s western suburbs.
Anthony, our flight attendant, patiently answered any and all questions. The most common was that of the differences between blimps and airships. The easy answer is that both are dirigibles since they are both lighter than air and can be navigated with a rudder. Balloons, on the other hand, are completely at the mercy of the wind. So, the difference between blimps and airships comes from the structure beneath the skin. A blimp is a bag of gas that is kept under pressure to maintain the shape. Most Americans associate blimps with Goodyear, Direct TV, and other advertisers who fly them over sporting events. Airships, however, have an internal frame to maintain shape and to contain bags of gas. Most people associate these ridged airships with the older Zeppelin ships like the unfortunate Hindenburg. The Farmers Airship is a Zeppelin NT (for New Technology) which is a modern, semi-ridged airship that is a bit of both models. It has a partial frame for support and stability but uses pressurized, nonflammable helium gas to maintain overall shape.
The Eureka is modern in too many ways to count. The frame is steel and carbon fibre. The skin is a laminate made by the same company that makes NASA’s space suit fabric. It uses three Lycoming engines that provide enough power to move the Eureka up to 67 knots (78 mph). Yet, it’s nimble enough to hover while performing 360 degree turns. This comes from the engines that can rotate 120 degrees on their mounts allowing for trust in almost any direction. Now, keep in mind that all of this is in a vehicle that is longer than a 747!
The stability and maneuverability make the airship an ideal candidate for uses well beyond passenger tours. Of course, camera platforms come to mind but there were even plans for using airships in fields as diverse as logging. Goodyear and Zeppelin recently announced a return to a partnership that first started in 1922. Zeppelin will come to America to build three new Zeppelin NT airships for Goodyear to replace their aging blimp fleet. That means that we are only a few years away from having Goodyear Airships rather than blimps over our sporting events. So, if you grew up wanting to ride in a Goodyear blimp, you might want to rethink things and go flying today in Airship Ventures’s Eureka which is the same Zeppelin NT model Goodyear will someday fly. You could daydream for years about Goodyear, or you can go fly the Farmer’s Airship today.
Once you get on board, it’s easy to daydream while looking out the windows of that ship. Despite years of flying over the Chicago area, I found myself wondering what it would take to get a lighter than air certificate which would allow me to fly dirigibles like the Zeppelin NT. A friend and fellow pilot, Vin Capone recently said that the process isn’t difficult but it’s hard to find an airframe to practice with. Fortunately, Airship Ventures offers flight training out of their Moffitt Field home base in Northern California. Being that we were in Chicago, I did my best to convince the crew to let me get at least 1/10th of an hour of time for my logbook. They nicely reminded me that there were other paying passengers onboard who might prefer to have a trained professional at the controls. Besides, Airship Ventures offers a Pilot Experience program that gives you instruction and a fair amount of time at the controls. Ah well. The pilot in me had to ask. Perhaps my American Airlines crew will have a different answer next week.
Flying in this airship is much different than you might expect as it’s movements are much closer to those of a helicopter. We took off nearly vertically and made yaw movements more typical for rotocraft. In flight, you are not only encouraged to stick your head out the window but they show you how and help you take pictures as you put your hair in the wind. Coming back, I expected a long approach into the wind, but we merely got over the target area and lowered into into position. I’ve certainly seen this with helicopters but it seemed odd for something so big to do the same thing and to do it so quietly. Helos make lots of noise when hovering, but the airship maintains a more civilized volume.-Mike
The 2011 Covering Communities Tour continues across the midwest through September before the Eureka returns to California’s Bay area. Along the way, you can take a ride in Chicago, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Kansas City, Oklahoma City, Dallas, Houston, Austin, and Tuscon. Regular flights around the bay area start up again mid-October. For more information about the schedule and to buy tickets, please visit http://www.airshipventures.com/ or http://farmersairship.com/
Want to know where Eureka is right now? Track her at http://www.airshipventures.com/about/track-the-ship
Of course you can find them on Twitter http://twitter.com/airshipventures and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/AirshipVentures as well as read their blog at http://blog.airshipventures.com/
For more photos and video, please visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/mike_miley/sets/72157627367331110/
This process happens three times through the day. That is two hours and 15 min of quiet darkness through the day.
I’ve got to give props to the gaggle of social media types typically gather around 
