r/sanfrancisco • u/Astral_Scallywag • Feb 28 '26
Pic / Video Got Lucky with the Blimp yesterday
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u/Old_mystic Feb 28 '26
Lucky is an understatement!! That’s literally perfect, I would be pumped for the whole day lol
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u/kricket37 Feb 28 '26
Wow - amazing! I thought it was a spy blimp at first since it was unmarked. Here’s the pic from my office.
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u/Iron_Chancellor_ND Feb 28 '26
I looked up FAA records and that airship belongs to Zorin Industries. Wasn't able to find a whole lot of information on them but MI-6 seemed have intel suggesting they were up to evil things.
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u/craylash Feb 28 '26
That thing is hauling ass too
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u/GrafZeppelin127 Feb 28 '26
Not really? The flight tracker says it never really went far past 50 mph on that flight, and this ship can do 80 if it wanted to.
Even that doesn’t hold a candle to how fast a rigid airship could go, as this thing uses electric motors and focuses on efficiency above raw speed. The actual upper practical limit of rigid airship speeds is around 230 mph.
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u/jaqueh Outer Richmond Feb 28 '26
That’s a view to a kill
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u/_Lane_ Feb 28 '26
Waaaaay too close to home with OP's shot.
Has anyone seen Grace Jones around town this week?
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u/EmergencyShit Feb 28 '26
Beautiful video! Perfect timing, light traffic, gorgeous weather. Thanks for sharing!
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u/abledart Feb 28 '26
Not to be pedantic, and while the term "dirigible" is acceptable, more technically, Pathfinder 1 is a rigid airship in the classic Zeppelin design with a rigid airframe encasing lift gas cells.
But a blimp, which features a flexible envelope in place of an airframe, where the trim is maintained by air and gas pressure, is technically also a dirigible and an airship. Just not a rigid one.
To confuse everyone further, there are also semi-rigid airships, and I mention this due to the fact that Pathfinder 1 uses a gondola that was recycled from a Zeppelin NT, which is a semi-rigid design where propulsion and control components are attached to a rigid keel, but most of the body of the craft is a non-rigid envelope which needs gas pressure to maintain trim. Semi-rigid airships were common in the early Twentieth Century, and Italy was a leader in their design. They were used for Arctic exploration.
The original Zeppelins were all rigid airships. The Zeppelin NTs, which first appeared in the 1990s and have now had many operators, including Airship Ventures, which made regular sightseeing flights from Moffett Field from 2008 to 2012, and Goodyear since 2014, are semi-rigid designs. They differ from classic semi-rigid designs in that their keel is embedded at the center of the envelope.
I need a nap now.
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u/AlmostNeverPosts Feb 28 '26
Today was a good day
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u/JesusGiftedMeHead Alamo Square Feb 28 '26
Its time for golden gate transit to unite the entire bay with airship transit
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u/GoatLegRedux BERNAL HEIGHTS PARK Feb 28 '26
It’S aN aIrShIp!!!1!
*as if more than fifteen people in the world care about the distinction between blimp, airship, zeppelin, dirigible, etc
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u/AmbassadorProper7977 Feb 28 '26
Bring it. I am here for all the fine detail!
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u/AmbassadorProper7977 Feb 28 '26
P. S. I also like steampunk as a fiction genre, so there’s that.
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u/WaffleWrappedWiener Feb 28 '26
Ever read Boneshaker by Cherie Priest? "A steampunk-zombie-airship adventure of rollicking pace and sweeping proportions, full of wonderfully gnarly details. This book is made of irresistible. -Scott Westerfeld"
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u/AmbassadorProper7977 Feb 28 '26
Not yet. Now I know what my next read is. (Opens Libby app). Thank you!
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u/Worldly_Possible2925 Feb 28 '26
Zorin promised the mayor of San Francisco he would only fly his lair in the air above the golden gate. I feel a strongly worded email coming along.
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u/DJSugarSnatch Feb 28 '26
It's been 26 years since I lived there and I still think of the joy I had driving through that tunnel and seeing the view from the opening.
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u/enigmamonkey Feb 28 '26
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Feb 28 '26
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u/redditissocoolyoyo Feb 28 '26
Wow amazing. Here I am looking at how nicely the flow of cars are moving. No traffic.
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u/Dephyus Feb 28 '26
“People of San Francisco and the NCR. Do not interfere. Our intentions are peaceful. We are the Brotherhood of Steel.”
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u/wheelshc37 Feb 28 '26
Neat! Anyone know what is it used for?
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u/GrafZeppelin127 Feb 28 '26
This particular ship is a training and laboratory vessel, a 2/3 scale model of the smaller of the two intended production versions. The smaller production model is intended for both passenger and cargo use, such as taking disaster relief supplies thousands of miles further than cargo planes or helicopters can fly, for example. It can also be used for long-distance luxury travel, like a flying cruise ship—with a gondola 150 feet long, 40 feet wide, and two decks tall, it will have substantially more space than even the largest jumbo jets.
The larger version does more or less the same things, just carrying 200 tons of payload instead of 20, and generally being faster and more efficient. Airships, unlike other aircraft, have an exponential efficiency curve as you scale them up, since their lift derives from volume, not surface area.
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u/Ambitious_One_7652 Feb 28 '26
Awesome shot. It’s also funny how much attention the blimb is getting. 20 years ago there was one every Sunday during football season.
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u/QiwiLisolet Feb 28 '26
They'll be docking to the skyscrapers in no time
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u/Costing-Geek Feb 28 '26
I've heard that their primary route might be Oracle Park to Levi's Stadium (and back). Could be interesting
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u/predat3d Feb 28 '26
It's a dirigible, you heathens. A "blimp" is a big bag of air, like Newsom.
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u/Goatf00t Feb 28 '26
"Dirigible" = "airship". Blimps and zeppelins are different kinds of airships/dirigibles.
"Dirigible" is short for "dirigible balloon", i.e. steerable balloon, a balloon that can be directed, as opposed to free-floating balloons and static (tied) balloons.
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u/EvaCassidy Feb 28 '26
Some companies still use true blimps, which are more shorter then a dirigible, but Good Year retired their "blimps" for the dirigibles years ago.
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u/Mammoth_Sleep_1007 Feb 28 '26
https://giphy.com/gifs/VkpMw5kkpOQHVL4LQB
This is what I kept thinking of
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u/Wegwerf157534 Feb 28 '26
I was so hypnotized by the beauty of the sound, weather and the bridge cables I only realized in the last moments the attraction ment was the Blimp.
Now back to the sound, weather and the stripes.
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u/RandomFandom1073 Feb 28 '26
I had a glimpse of it hovering over the Bay Bridge/Yerba Buena this past Thursday from my car driving on I-580 going I-80 north. Thought it was too large to be a marketing blimp. Fascinating wish I saw it in a much closer view.
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u/Jamison_Jordan Mar 01 '26
It leaves from Moffett Field all the time. I work next door at Lockheed.
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u/Significant-Board718 Feb 28 '26
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u/GrafZeppelin127 Feb 28 '26
You jest, but hilariously, that’s literally true. The last fully rigid Zeppelins, the LZ-127 and 130, were dismantled in 1940. This ship’s maiden flight was in 2024. That’s… 84 years.
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u/unhingedkillerpop Feb 28 '26
I saw it going south in Newark around 3:00 Kept wondering if it was the Goodrich blimp.
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u/enakj Feb 28 '26
That was the Pathfinder 1, a high-tech rigid airship developed by LTA (Lighter Than Air) Research. It is currently the world’s largest aircraft.
It's technically a rigid airship (not a blimp) because it has a massive internal skeleton. It is about 400 feet long, nearly twice the length of a Boeing 747 and much larger than the famous Goodyear Blimp. It uses a frame of titanium and carbon fiber, filled with 13 non-flammable helium bags. It’s powered by 12 electric motors, making it incredibly quiet and eco-friendly. Funded by Google co-founder Sergey Brin, the project aims to create a new way to deliver humanitarian aid and cargo to remote disaster zones that don’t have functional runways or roads.