Welcome to Miami

Well we made it down to Miami this week to provide aerial coverage for tonight's NFL Pro Bowl and the many festivities building up to the Super Bowl. Some of the highlights on the way down included a pass by the Goodyear Blimp hanger in Pompano Beach and a great view of all the preparations going on down in South Beach and at the stadium for Super Week. Its going to be a crazy week here on the Direct TV Blimp with plenty of flying (weather permitting of course). We'll keep our fingers crossed for a nice sunny week in Southern Florida!

Big Blimpin' in Orlando

I've reached the next milestone in my blimp career this week. I've completed my training to fly our largest ship, the A-170. My first "solo" flight was a transit down from Gainesville to Orlando, Florida earlier this week. I also did my first camera event in the big ship last night as we provided aerial coverage for the Orlando Magic NBA basketball game. It was the first of three events we are covering here in Orlando before heading to Miami for the up coming NFL festivities over the next two weeks.

Above is a picture of Orlando's downtown skyline and below is a picture I took at sunset just before landing earlier this week.

The Sunshine State

Well there has been plenty of sunshine in Florida since I arrived here a couple weeks ago but it sure has been cold! Not the most comfortable blimp flying weather by any means, but you bundle up and make the best of it. I'm now on the Direct TV Blimp getting use to flying the big airship again. Above are a few pictures from around Orlando as we flew around last week. The highlight was flying high above the Disney World resorts. I was quite surprised at how small the Magic Kingdom looked compared to the other parks. Despite it being unseasonably cold, there still were plenty of people walking down Main Street.

A San Diego Afternoon

I enjoyed a nice flight yesterday around the San Diego area. The grounds people at Qualcomm Stadium are busy getting the lines painted for Sunday's Chargers game. Of course, we'll be providing the aerial coverage on CBS for that game. There were also a lot of kite surfers out by Crystal Pier enjoying the waves. An absolutely beautiful day to be at the beach. Finally as I was flying along the coast, I thought I'd try to get a good "Shadow Blimp" riding on the Pacific Railroad tracks. I think a couple of them came out kind of cool. No matter how many flights I do, there is always something fun to see and sometimes even take a picture of it.

Return to San Diego

View Flight Plot from Sunday in a larger map
We ended our month long stay up in Northern California to return to San Diego for some events. I did the flying on Sunday to finish the second leg of the two day trip, taking Snoopy from Santa Maria, CA to Brown Field south of San Diego. It was an enjoyable trip down the coast mainly which made for a very smooth ride especially with the scattered cloud cover we had most of the day. Above is the approximate route I took to give you an idea of the distance traveled and some of the places I past by on my way down. Below is a picture of downtown Long Beach, looking down Ocean Boulevard.

Track Me Across the Country

Google has a program called Latitude which takes the approximate GPS location from your phone and plots it on the map. I've decided to add a spot on the page so you can track me on my journeys to answer the often popular question...Where is Keith? Be sure to come back often to check it out on the right side column of my blog and track me all across the country on my blimpin' adventures!

Cruising Around the Bay

I did another flight around The Bay Area this week in the ship. It had a bunch of highlights that I documented in the above pictures.

I started off in San Francisco which is always picturesque. I included some pictures of the California Academy of Sciences building which has a "living roof" garden on top of it. Reading more about it, you wonder how many more of these types of roofs will work their way on top of modern buildings. After some time over downtown I worked my way down the 101 past San Francisco International Airport in time to watch a heavy 747 take off.

Finally as I worked my way down towards San Jose, I caught up with the Airship Ventures Zeppelin NT airship just in time to watch them land. If you aren't familiar with their operations, they are still the only company in the United States offering passenger rides in an airship. I really like the shadow of the enormous airship against the hanger as it lands. Even from a distance, its an impressive aircraft.

After a quick trip over San Jose, it was time to wrap up the day and head back to Livermore Airport for a landing at sunset. In summary, another great day in the life of an airship pilot!

Raiders Game

I flew over the Oakland Raiders game on Sunday as they took on the Kansas City Chiefs. We provided the aerial coverage for the CBS telecast in case you happened to see it. If not, here are a couple pictures of the stadium during the game.