The airship provides overnight accomodation for twenty-four passengers – the owner and his guests – in thirteen luxurious staterooms, each with private bath and observation veranda overlooking the ocean. Including the service personnel (stewards, chefs, purser), the normal crew numbers twenty-six in two watches.

At its nominal cruising speed of seventy knots, the airship has an endurance of sixty hours, giving it a range of 5,000 miles. At a reduced speed, endurance may be doubled (or even quadrupled) if so desired. Normal cruising altitude for oceanic crossings is 2,000 feet above sea level, with an absolute ceiling of 12,000 feet. For the cruise at hand, provisions for three days will be carried. The scheduled departure for early evening brings the score of guests to the base by sunset. As dusk descends, the airship slips its mast and noiselesslypoints its nose southward. Passengers standing on the darkened promenade watch as the myriad lights of Manhattan pass beneath and recede astern. The airship has risen to 2,500 feet and passes out over the Atlantic not again to make landfall for some twelve hours. The passengers make their way into the softly illuminated lounge for a lingering cocktail hour. An invisible orchestra fills the glowing room with music from a concealed quadriphonic audio system.

As chimes announce the evening meal, passengers gather about the long oval table to enjoy with their host a seven-course banquet aloft. Later in the evening, they will be entertained with a cinematic spectacle on the wide screen in the lounge (which descends at an electronic signal.) And after, perhaps, a final cigar in the smoking room, the travellers drift off to their luxurious staterooms high up on "A Deck." They can be assured of a most restful night: there is nothing like an airship as a cure for insomnia.

Sunrise finds the air yacht within sight of the Florida coast, and the passengers flock to the starboard promenade to absorb a spectacular view of the beaches below. Suddenly they are startled by the roar of an aircraft motor – they are presently to be joined by additional guests who are scheduled to be picked up from Palm Beach by the airship's shuttle plane.

The six-place Beechcraft has been lowered through hangar doors (aft of the passenger bays) at the bottom of the hull and hangs suspended from a retractable trapeze mechanism, its engine warming. It is shortly released and descends to the West Palm Beach International Airport. There it is boarded by two awaiting couples. Taking off again promptly, the specially adapted Beechcraft approaches the air yacht from aft and below. Its upper hook-on gear engages the trapeze on the airship, and the shuttle is drawn up into the hangar space aboard ship. Folding panels swing closed across the opening and the new arrivees disembark to be greeted by their host. They have boarded the mother ship in time for an ample breakfast being served on the starboard promenade.

With this mission accomplished, the air yacht turns inland and traverses the Florida peninsula, passing Lake Okeechobee, and an hour later sighting the Gulf of Mexico at Fort Myers. Here, as everywhere, all eyes in the city turn upward to marvel at the majestic sweep of the ship as it crosses the city and again heads out over open water. Rising now to full pressure height at 3,000 feet – all helium cells expanded to maximum volume – the ship points southwestward towards the Yucatan Peninsula. The passage requires about five hours, leaving several hours of daylight for the air voyagers to examine the wonders of Chichen Itza and Uxmal from a superb low altitude vantage point. The airship slowly circles the astonishing Mayan ruins long enough for camera wielders to snap pictures through the open promenade deck windows.

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B Deck.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Aft Promenade Deck. Forward Promenade Deck. Main Lounge. Foyer. Dining Salon. Bar. Storage. Purser's Office. Pantry. Lavatory.