Landfall

XLI

After crossing the vast open wastes of the Pacific Ocean in less than three days flying time, Dr. Eckener veered south from his Great Circle Route along the 45th Parallel to bring the Graf Zeppelin across the California coast directly over San Francisco's Golden Gate.

Three views of the Graf Zeppelin entering the Golden Gate at sunset.  Construction on the Golden Gate Bridge would not even begin for another four years

The Golden Gate Bridge was still years in the future as Eckener guided his Luftschiff expertly between the headlands that make up the north and south gates of San Francisco Bay. Quite dramatically, he timed the airship's arrival so that it seemed to be appearing out of the rays of the setting sun. The vast silver ship was burnished to gold in the departing daylight, and awestruck Californians who were there never forgot the moment, Sadly, no color photographs of the Graf Zeppelin's arrival exist, though artists have tried to capture it.

Although San Francisco was not on the Graf Zeppelin's itinerary, Eckener, with his usual romantic flair explained his decision to cross the coast at San Francisco:

“When for the first time in world history an airship flies across the Pacific, should it not arrive at sunset over the Golden Gate?”

Poet that he was, Eckener took the airship on a long slow circuit over San Francisco giving the denizens of the city an opportunity to see the ship overhead.

As the last of the light faded, he turned the Graf Zeppelin southwestward toward her first landfall, Los Angeles. She arrived at the City of The Angels on the night of August 26, 1929, 79 hours and three minutes after leaving Tokyo.

The Graf Zeppelin arrives at Mines Field (LAX) at night

Los Angeles was the site of the Worldflight's only major technical problems. 

As Eckener brought the ship in for a landing he discovered that Los Angeles was suffering from one of its infamous smog-producing thermal inversions, in which a layer of hot air hung trapped beneath a layer of colder air.

Every time he tried to bring the Graf Zeppelin down to the mooring it struck the trapped inversion layer, causing the ship to bounce upward like a Spaulding handball.

Although he was loath to do so, Dr. Eckener was finally forced to vent a good deal of precious hydrogen to get the ship to ground level. The valving of the hydrogen reduced the ship's lift making it less buoyant. While the Graf Zeppelin managed to land safely, Dr. Eckener was troubled. A less buoyant airship was an airship that was crippled in reaching altitude and one that was limited in its maneuvering abilities.

Dr. Eckener couldn't forget that the Graf Zeppelin still had a sizeable transcontinental leg of the Worldflight to sail before it reached Lakehurst. He still had to sail across the western mountains and the high plains. It was a significant distance that had to be flown largely without meteorological data (the U.S. was first building a national meteorological station network in conjunction with Pan American Airways in the late 1920s, but most of the middle of the country was still bereft of such stations.)

A Goodyear Blimp is dwarfed by the Graf Zeppelin.

At a distance, the blimp looks toylike compared to the zeppelin.

If Dr. Eckener needed to be reminded of the destructive potential of continental summer storms over the American heartland he had Commander Rosendahl, formerly of the U.S.S. Shenandoah on board to remind him. During the next leg of the voyage, Rosendahl rarely left the bridge.

Worst of all, there was no hydrogen available in Los Angeles, nor between Los Angeles and Lakehurst, meaning that there was no way to correct the ship's buoyancy problem. 

The Graf Zeppelin would have to fly "heavy."