Weather Thwarts Airship Flight

I spent the last week in San Fancisco, California shooting photographs for an article on Airship Ventures. Similar to how private fly companies provide jets or helicopters for flying in style, Airship Ventures provide rides in their airships over the local area. It’s slower than a jet of course but the views should be spectacular as there’s more time to take in the sights and less engine noise as well. They also fly to and around other areas for special events.

The plan was to come up to their base at Moffett Field and do their two-hour flight to get plenty of variety of shots from the air. Unfortunately, the first day’s low clouds caused our flight to be canceled. No problem, we would just go on the shorter bay area flight scheduled for the next day out.

As we arrived at the meeting point in the field things look like it would go ahead. Then we got the bad news, winds were too high for our flight and we were canceled again. Winds are a big deal to airships, as they get blown about pretty easily being lighter than air. Whereas they are capable of flying in the winds of the day, they do not as the ride is very rough, unpleasant, and possibly dangerous to passengers. Good call by them, but a disappointment to us.

I did manage to get these shots of the airship when stopped by Moffett for our ground shots. We will be going by soon to take the flight and finish the article.

Orcatek Photography – Phoenix