Member John Rinquist is also an avid aviation photographer.  He recently captured this image of the “Farmers Zeppelin”.  He photographed it just after sunset from the West end of Flying Cloud Airport in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.  The ship is seen here resting for the night.

Most people didn’t know Farmers had commissioned its own airship, and don’t know the definition of a zeppelin.  Here is the Wikipedia description:

A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship pioneered by the German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin in the early 20th century. It was based on designs he had outlined in 1874^[1] and detailed in 1893.^[2] His plans were reviewed by committee in 1894^[2] and patented in the United States on 14 March 1899.^[3] Given the outstanding success of the Zeppelin design, the term zeppelin in casual use came to refer to all rigid airships. Zeppelins were operated by the Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-AG (DELAG). DELAG, the first commercial airline, served scheduled flights before World War I. After the outbreak of war, the German military made extensive use of Zeppelins as bombers and scouts.

John was out again last Friday evening on the bluffs overlooking the southwestern river valley from a vantage point near the Flying Cloud Airport control tower. He took the brilliant image below. It is a composition of 3 exposures 1 stop each apart.

Submitted by Dynolights Member John Ringquist