Surprisingly, in the end it all worked out fine.
After I celebrated my 40th birthday with a sightseeing flight in an Antonow AN-2 biplane and my 50th birthday with a balloon flight, I had been looking for something flight-related to do as a 'birthday event' for my 60th.
The balloon flight had been a bit stressful.
The flight was wonderful and everything went as I hoped it would, but balloon flights are very weather dependent and I had been worrying a lot on whether there would be a group of people standing on a muddy field in the middle of nowhere at 5 am and I would need to tell them that the event has been cancelled. And their getting up early, potentially taking a day off from work and driving 50 km or so all had been in vain.
It turned out to be a windy morning and wind speeds were only barely within acceptable limits, but in the end we did go with the balloons and everything was fine.
Trying to avoid that last minute stress, I did try to be a bit more on the safe side this time.
And a zeppelin flight seemed to fit the bill perfectly.
It was flight related, it was unusual and it was something most people I wanted to invite had never done before. And while zeppelins don't fly in strong winds (at least they don't do sightseeing fights with tourists then), they do fly in some wind speeds where balloons don't.
A zeppelin also has a closed passenger cabin with comfortable seats, so there would be none of the 'standing room only', climbing into the basket and bumpy landings that balloons offer. (After all, everyone is a decade older now... I don't think that would have mattered to anyone, but it seemed fitting to offer a more 'deluxe' experience than last time.)
And there is room for 12 people on a flight, which seemed like a reasonable number of people to celebrate a birthday with.
So, back in February, I sent an e-mail to the zeppelin company and asked about booking a two-hour flight exclusively for me and the guests of my birthday party.
They sent a mail back about how much that would cost me and after thinking about it for a long while, I decided that it would really be a fitting way to celebrate my birthday and booked it anyway.
Then I sent out invitations. I got a few "thanks, but no" answers.
But that was understandable. The flight would be in Friedrichshafen and that's not even close to where anyone that I invited lived. So I, essentially, asked people to give up a summer weekend, do a lot of travelling, spend a night or to at a hotel - simply to be at my 'birthday party'. And then there would be the risk of bad weather and everyone showing up for an event that might be cancelled on short notice. It was also the beginning of summer, so some people had already booked their own vacations for that time and would be somewhere else entirely.
So I went further down the list of people I wanted to be there and invited them.
And pretty soon the flight was fully booked, including a couple of seats at an earlier flight. (I had decided that, if someone brought their spouses or kids along, these wouldn't be on my 'birthday flight', but to avoid frustration, I would book them on a regular flight, so they wouldn't get dragged down to Friedrichshafen for nothing.)
So far, so good.
All that was left to do was to wait until June.
And then the Corona virus came along and threw everything into chaos.
At first, at the beginning of February, it all seemed ok. There were people getting sick in northern Italy, but that wouldn't have any effect on the rest of Europe, would it?
By the time I came back from my dogsledding holiday in March, it was clear that this did have an effect on the rest of Europe (and the rest of the world).
Still no problem. Corona took two weeks to run its course. So three or four weeks of isolation would make it go away. Right?
And the original restrictions of public life were planned accordingly.
When they started the restrictions om March, 21st, they were supposed to last until April, 3rd.
Then after much debating, they decided to extend it for about another two weeks, until April 19th. This kept the restrictions lasting through Easter, to avoid an increase in infections due to vacation travel over the Easter weekend.
But still, that's more than two months before my birthday before everything returns to normal.
Then they decided to continue restrictions until May, 3rd.
Before the date became May 10th.
And as since they were on a roll, the next date was June 29th, followed by July, 15th.
Right now, there doesn't seem to be an end in sight.
By now the regulations, like the requirement to wear face masks, are expected to go on for months to come.
Not a convenient situation to plan a birthday party, especially with the rules changing all the time.
For a long time, it wasn't clear whether the Zeppelin would fly at all.
Originally the announcement was that they would start the season in May, 1st.
Then the season start was May 15th.
Soon it was May 21st.
They then started flying on May, 29th.
So far, that was annoying, but easy to handle.
If they would be flying on my birthday, then things would run as normal.
But then they changed the rules (again) and stated that they could only have eight (instead of twelve) passengers, due to distancing rules.
Which meant that I would have to un-invite four people from my birthday event.
This did not turn out to be a problem, however.
At that point, a number of guests had cancelled due to various reasons, so at that point, I wondered whether I would be able to find seven people to fly with me. (And already included two people originally booked on the earlier flight. Due to the lower number of people on their flights, all their flights were overbooked. As they didn't want to break up a group that was booked on that earlier flight, they moved two of 'my' passengers to the birthday flight.)
At least until six days before the flight.
Then the rules changed again and they were allowed twelve passengers again.
There was a brief flurry of panic. I wouldn't be able to find another four people to travel to Friedrichshafen on short notice. (Even less six people, if they had moved two people back to the previous flight.)
But I also didn't want my 'birthday flight' filled up with four random people.
After a bit of back and forth, however, things remained as planned. Two people would stay on the earlier flight. And there would be eight people on 'my' flight.
And after that, nothing critical changed in the remaining days before the flight.
There had been lots of other things to worry about. I wanted to fly to Munich, rent a car, drive to Friedrichshafen, spend a night there, drive back to Munich after the Zeppelin flight and fly home with the last flight of the day.
But Lufthansa cancelled that flight and I had no way to make it back the same day. They also cancelled all flights to Friedrichshafen, which kept my sister from visiting and also meant that I could not fly directly to Friedrichshafen as an alternate route. (In the end, I spent a night at the airport hotel in Munich and took the first flight home next morning.) There was also a proposed rule that hotel rooms should only have one occupant per week. So it would be likely that they'd only accept guests who would stay for longer periods and cancel 'day guests' as they would only pay for a night, but block the room for a week. (Luckily, that rule was never made mandatory.)
But listing all those things in detail would about triple the length of this text. And, as an introduction, it is already a few hundred words too long already.
Suffice to say - I made to Friedrichshafen on the day before my birthday.
The other nine people (and a dog) made it to Friedrichshafen as well. (Two of them would be on a 45-minute flight in the morning, while the other seven would be on the two hour afternoon flight with me. While the other two would take care of the dog during that time.)
While that was a bit different from the original plan, made way back in February, at least it was according to the plan made earlier that week. So there were no last minute surprises.
And I had an unexpectedly fast car as well.
Though I am not sure why.
The rental company had the usual selections of car classes (mini, economy, compact, intermediate...), but for some cars, you could also select a specific type. As I wanted a small car and I like the Fiat 500 (reasonable on highways, and nice and go-kart-y to drive on winding mountain roads), I specifically selected one of those. But without any explanation, they gave me a rather new Ford Fiesta ST 1.5 in the 'Performance Edition'. I am not sure why they did that, but I assume that the car rental business is quite slow at the moment. They presumably automatically upgraded all rentals, as they had more cars available than they could rent out. And assumed that customers were happy to get a bigger car than expected.
In any case, it made the drive to Friedrichshafen a bit faster than it would have been with a Fiat 500.
The night in Friedrichshafen was spent in some comfort.
As a birthday present, my sister had gotten me a neat suite, right at the port of Friedrichshafen, so I could sit at the panoramic window and see the ships leaving and coming in. At least for about fifteen minutes in the morning. As I had a busy schedule, I probably spent a total of less than an hour in the suite while being awake.
Anyway, a good place to sleep into your birthday.
And a lot easier to get to and comfortable to be in than the one I slept into my birthday the previous year.
After breakfast, it was time to go to the airport.
By now it looked like the last potential issue - the weather - would not be a problem. And that we would actually fly.
There were no flights on Thursday and Friday due to the weather conditions. And they had cancelled some of the flights on Saturday. So the worries hadn't been unjustified, but on Sunday things looked ok.
The guests for the 11:00 flight had checked in, the Zeppelin approached the landing site in an elegant semi-circle and it was time for them to board.
The boarding procedure is a bit different compared with planes.
To avoid sudden shifts in weight, boarding and disembarking is done in pairs. So for every two people leaving the Zeppelin, two new passengers enter.
Boarding completed, so it was time for them to leave.
They were heading for Meersburg to the north-west of Friedrichshafen and returned safe and sound 45 minutes later.
About two hours later, it was time for the 'main event'.
We went through our briefing, which was mostly about how to enter and leave the Zeppelin.
Besides entering in groups of two, the other important information was not to take pictures when approaching the Zeppelin.
While this was, surely, partly to keep everyone moving and not delay the boarding by someone stopping to take pictures, the main reason was the Zeppelin moving around.
Depending on the wind, the Zeppelin might turn a bit (like a giant weathervane). And if you don't pay attention, you might get swiped off your feet by the Zeppelin.
So the initial 'staging area' is roughly half a Zeppelin length away from the cabin.
And then you are escorted in pairs to about ten meters' distance, where you are in 'hitting distance' of the cabin, if the Zeppelin swivels around. So you are expected to pay attention to your surroundings. (I 'cheated' slightly by keeping a video camera vaguely pointed at the Zeppelin and taking some frames from that footage.)
The good news during the briefing was that we would be allowed to move around in the cabin. Currently the rules are that all passengers need to stay in their assigned seats during the flight. But as we weren't a random group of customers, but had booked as a group (and spent most of the day together anyhow) and were only eight people on board, we only had to stay seated during take-off and landing (and had to stay away from the flight deck), but could move around during the flight (though we had to wear face masks).
We also would be flying the route I had booked.
They have two possible routes for their two-hour flights. One called "Rheinfall", which went to the Rhine Falls at Schaffhausen and back again. And one called "Bodensee", following roughly the shoreline of Lake Constance.
I hadn't really cared much about the route (it was more important to me to have a two-hour flight) and I had more or less at random selected the "Rheinfall" flight.
And they had replied that they would make the booking, but in the afternoon, wind conditions are sometimes not good for that route and they might have to change it on short notice, depending on the weather on the flight day.
I mailed back that this would be fine, as booking that tour was essentially a random choice, so I wouldn't be disappointed if I wouldn't get to see the Rhine Falls from above.
In the end, it turned out that the conditions were kind of marginal, but that they would go with the original flight plan.
The Zeppelin we were flying in was branded 'Goodyear'.
Zeppelin has started a co-operation with Goodyear and had been supplying them with Zeppelins. Traditionally, Goodyear had been flying blimps, but now they also added Zeppelins to their 'air fleet' (and I'm not starting to explain the difference between those two).
In turn, they branded one of the Zeppelins stationed in Friedrichshafen (the D-LZFN, the second one they built) with the 'Goodyear' design.
There was another Zeppelin in Friedrichshafen at that time (the D-LZNT), but that was in the hangar that day, so only a bit of it could be glimpsed through the hangar door.
Unfortunately, we couldn't see more of it. I had originally booked a guided tour of the hangar as well, but for some reason they cancelled all hangar tours. (Which is a bit strange - these hangars are huge (bordering on enormous), so if you wanted to offer a tour and still ensure enough place for social distancing, that would surely have been the best place to do it.)
Then we were out on the airfield and the Zeppelin was coming in.
The airfield also has a webcam, so I had taken some screenshots from that to get a side view.
I am not quite sure whether they appreciated that. The webcam can be remotely controlled and sometimes it points at the hangar or the other anchor site. As I knew when I would be flying, I had a look at the manual of the webcam and wrote a short program. It would send the necessary commands to point the camera at the landing site and take a snapshot. Worked well. But it might be that they did see that as some attempt to 'hack' their camera, because when I tried it a couple of days later, the access to commands controlling the camera was password protected. Seems to be back to normal now, though.
The Zeppelin landing site is part of Friedrichshafen airport, which also serves as a base for glider planes (one of them is visible right behind the Zeppelin) and also as a commercial airport (though, at the moment, the regular flights are not operating).
This is also the reason for some limitations on what you can bring on board.
You can't bring an umbrella or a knife. Not so much because they are worried that you might poke the Zeppelin with it, but mostly because the landing site is part of the regular 'secure area' of the airport, so all the usual hand luggage restrictions apply. So, technically, you're not supposed to bring a bottle of water either.
In any case, our bags had been checked, we were on the airfield and the Zeppelin had arrived.
Time to board.
Boarding went quickly (it doesn't take that long for eight people to enter) and off we went.
The angle of ascent is surprisingly steep. Given the propulsion system (propellers that can swivel around) a 'helicopter' start (straight up and the forward) somehow seems more appropriate. But it's a slow start (as the Zeppelin doesn't need to accelerate to get the air flowing under the wings to create lift) without much acceleration, so it feels more like reclining in an armchair than an upwards swoop.
(Side remark: the only marginally good thing about being forced to wear face masks during the flight is that photographers need to worry slightly less about people in pictures being recognizable.)
Here are some pictures taken on that flight.
I won't give a running commentary and explain things in detail. That gets tedious after the fifth (or twentieth) variant of "...and the next thing we flew over was...and then we passed...after that we...".
So I'll present the picture and, where appropriate, a short indication what it shows and a link to Google Earth.
And go back to 'commentary mode' after that.
|
|
|
|
| Friedrichshafen | Friedrichshafen | Friedrichshafen | Roundabout |
| View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth |
|
|
|
|
| Schlosskirche Friedrichshafen | Horticulture Company | Glider plane | Flight deck view |
| View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth |
|
|
|
|
| Castle Kirchberg | Guesthouse in Hagnau | Boat on Lake Constance | Konstanz University |
| View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth |
|
|
|
|
| Medical Center Konstanz | Seegarten Harbor Kreuzlingen | Konstanz Yacht Harbor | Ship near Rhine bridge at Konstanz |
| View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth |
|
|
|
|
| Konstanz Port | Swiss-German Border Customs | Bridge near Konstanz | Rhine near Konstanz |
| View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth |
|
|
|
|
| Rhine leaving Konstanz | Rhine leaving Konstanz | Rhine leaving Konstanz | Rhine leaving Konstanz |
|
|
|
|
| Rhine near Reichenau | Lilienberg conference center in Ermatingen | Waterski on the Rhine | Castle Eugensberg |
| View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth |
|
|
|
|
| Boats near Ermatingen | Boats near Berlingen | Boats near Berlingen | Berlingen |
| View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth |
|
|
|
|
| Building site Steckborn | Playground with 'boat' | Badly drawn SD card | St.Othmar chapel on the island of Werd |
| View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth |
|
|
|
|
| Mammern | Flock of birds over Rhine | Hohenklingen Castle | Zeppelin rear window |
| View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth |
|
|
|
|
| Approaching Rhine Falls at Schaffhausen | Rhine Falls at Schaffhausen | Rhine Falls at Schaffhausen | Rhine Falls at Schaffhausen |
| View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth |
|
|
|
|
| Rhine Falls at Schaffhausen | Rhine Falls at Schaffhausen | Parking for Rhine Falls at Schaffhausen | Rhine Falls at Schaffhausen |
| View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth |
|
|
|
|
| Munothall Schaffhausen | Rhybadi Rhine Swimming Pool | Shooting range near Gottmadingen | Hohentwiel Castle Ruins |
| View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth |
|
|
|
|
| Cycling track Singen | Birkenbühl gravel pit | Zeppelin shadow over forest | Solar park Rickelshausen |
| View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth |
|
|
|
|
| Radolfzell industrial area | Radolfzell aquaTurm hotel | Mettnau Peninsula | Markelfingen bathing beach |
| View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth |
|
|
|
|
| Zeppelin shadow over forest | Mainau island | Flowers at Mainau island | Castle Mainau |
| View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth |
|
|
|
|
| Meersburg ferry terminal | Church in Meersburg | Droste-Hülshoff-Gymnasium Meersburg | Campervans at Stetten Old Brewery |
| View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth |
|
|
|
|
| Hagnau | Hagnau wine vineyard | Hagnau wine vineyard | Coming in to land at Friedrichshafen Airport |
| View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth | View with Google Earth |
I had flown in a Zeppelin about a decade earlier (in 2009) and the inside had looked a bit different then. In 2009, they went for a creamy white 'bus interior' look, while in 2020 they went more towards 'business lounge' with a graphite colour. And they removed the things that looked like overhead lockers (but weren't), making the inside look roomier.
|
|
| 2009 | 2020 |
Unfortunately, they also removed the panoramic window at the back. In 2009 there weren't any seats in the back. But there was a kind of upholstered bench in front of a large window, so people could take turns to look out to the back and take pictures.
Now there are to regular seats there. Commercially sensible, as that allows for two more passengers. But somehow not as interesting as it was.
|
|
| 2009 | 2020 |
The changes in the instrument panel were interesting.
|
|
|
|
|
Obviously there were no mechanical displays anymore.
Back in 2009, most of the status displays that would also be in a small airplane were still mechanical (artificial horizon, compass, speed, climb rate). While the Zeppelin specific status displays were electronic.
Now all the status displays are on screens, except for a compass on the top of the dashboard.
And, somewhat tucked away to the side, the instruments showing the helium pressure in the Zeppelin.
I assume that they are still analogue devices because they might not be electric driven, but purely pneumatic. At least the 'cables' going in there look more like tubes than electrical wires.
But although the displays are (almost) all screen based now, the interface seems to have taken a turn back to physical input.
Yes, the flight map is on a tablet now, but while back in 2009 the central console (with the information about the propeller position and status) had seven buttons and two brightness dials, it's now 24 buttons and two brightness rocker switches.
Seems that someone did figure out in the last decade that it's much faster to press a button than to navigate through screen menus.
When the flight was over, we left the Zeppelin in pairs again.
Once again, the rule was not to stop and take pictures while being close to the Zeppelin. Walk away quickly to the designated 'safe area' and take pictures from there.
By then, the advice started to make sense.
While the weather was still ok for flying, the wind had picked up a fair bit (and the cloud cover got denser), so the Zeppelin moved around a bit while boarding and disembarking was going on.
Obviously it didn't lash out as quickly as it looks on the time lapse. But even at slow speed, you don't want to get hit by a Zeppelin, so it's better to pay at least some attention to it.
And take pictures when you are a bit away from it.
Before taking off, the Zeppelin had to take a leak and drop some water.
I assumed that the reason for this is that we were only eight people on our flight, while the next one had the regular twelve passengers again. So they had put in some ballast water to compensate for four people. And now they got rid of the additional weight again.
Then the Zeppelin took off with the new group of passengers (and darker, less pleasant looking skies) and all that was left to do for us was to return to the 'terminal building' and go home.
Here's the route we took on the flight.
The flight track is also available as a KML file to watch on Google Earth.
We covered 142.5 km in slightly less than two hours (1:56) flight time, with a maximum speed of 107 km/h and an average speed of 74 km/h. (On the way out, it was around 65 km/h and around 90 km/h on our way back. I don't know whether that's because of the wind direction or whether we used more power when heading home, as we were covering areas that we had seen before.) The altitude above the ground was mostly between 300 and 400 meters.
After the flight I drove back to airport hotel in Munich.
Somewhat oddly, one of the birthday mails I got on that day had a remark that, now that I have entered a new decade, I might take life a bit slower.
I really didn't pay heed to that when I rushed back on the highway towards Munich. Turned our that the rental car was capable of doing 228 km/h, which was the fastest I have ever driven on a regular road by a wide margin.
I had tried with some rental cars to go over 200 km/h, although not with the Fiat 500 cars I usually like to rent, but never managed to do it. (I've driven at 269 km/h, though. But that was on a track.)
Life in the fast lane, indeed.
Things slowed down, however, at the airport.
Usually, Munich Airport is busy at all times, but especially so early on Monday morning, where many business people take the first flight to be in Berlin in time for a meeting or, for those who live in Munich and work in Berlin, to get to their office at the beginning of the week.
On that morning, the airport looked almost spookily deserted. (I think that from all the gates visible in the photo, there was only one flight leaving within the next two hours.)
Well, at least my flight was on time. At the moment, they really don't have to worry much about airspace congestion.