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Riding in an airship is supposed to be a quiet and smooth experience. A century before, travelers would pay big bucks for the opportunity to dine from a perspective only a bumpy and flimsy aircraft could provide.
The maiden voyage of Telsa’s Legacy was the furthest thing from smooth and anything but quiet for Elizabeth. Even with a thick wall and a sealed door, the hum of the power plant - taking up most of the gondola - rattled and vibrated the pilots cabin. The Chinook helicopter tethered to the nose of Tesla, along with the high winds blowing over the San Gabriel range, jerked and tugged the experimental blimp like a car driven by someone learning to drive a stick. An hour out from Tesla’s hangar at Edwards Air Force base and Elizabeth could already feel a migraine creeping in.

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quote:

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Riding in an airship is supposed to be a quiet and smooth experience

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I can see how you used them to convey opposite reaction in the later sentence. Sometimes this can be an effective tool (Comparing ideas in similar form) But it seemed rigid here.

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A century before, travelers would pay big bucks for the opportunity to dine from a perspective only a bumpy and flimsy aircraft could provide.

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I think "would" needs to be "would've"

"Dine from a perspective" doesn't really make much sense to me. I get your idea, but I think the word choice is wrong.

Also, "A bumpy and flimsy craft'
Here the adjectives are describing the craft, and taken in that context don't make sense. It could be a flimsy craft but the 'bumpy' is describing the experience and not the craft.

Even something a s simple as, "To dine among the clouds" might better serve your purpose.

quote:

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The Chinook helicopter tethered to the nose of Tesla, along with the high winds blowing over the San Gabriel range, jerked and tugged the experimental blimp like a car driven by someone learning to drive a stick

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The chinook towed the blimp through the turbelent cross winds of the San Gabriel range. This is how I am seeing the message you are trying to convey. It sounds so Strunk&White, but short concise sentences stated positively with emphatic meaning toward the end are always a hit, especially when there is a good deal of speculative elements to wrap your head around. Making it easy for the reader to understand often is the way to go.

Otherwise, an unexpected uncomfortable ride and a migrane aren't much to grab my attention, even if the ride is in a experimental craft. SOmething feels like this is a civilian in a military setting. That has a degree of interest, but not enough to hook me.

*While this beginning works OK, I think maybe it would be a lot more interesting if you focused on the character more. Introduce us to the MC before going in to the technical details, then as readers we will be more interested.**

Riding in an airship is supposed to be a quiet and smooth experience. (This works alright, but then you go and say

A century before, travelers would pay big bucks for the opportunity to dine from a perspective only a bumpy and flimsy aircraft could provide. (Immediately we're given a history lesson, when I think it would work better if you begin with the MC's POV, and her reaction to the trip. This bit of detail could then be more clearly in her POV)

The maiden voyage of Telsa’s Legacy was the furthest thing from smooth and anything but quiet for Elizabeth. Even with a thick wall and a sealed door, the hum of the power plant - taking up most of the gondola - rattled and vibrated the pilots cabin.

The Chinook helicopter tethered to the nose of Tesla, along with the high winds blowing over the San Gabriel range, jerked and tugged the experimental blimp like a car driven by someone learning to drive a stick. An hour out from Tesla’s hangar at Edwards Air Force base and Elizabeth could already feel a migraine creeping in.

I really have no idea of who Elizabeth is, is she the pilot, copilot, why is she in the pilot's cabin?

The only reason I can think of to focus so much on the airship is because it is heading for a Hindenburg-like disaster, and with this being the maiden voyage and more bumpy ride than it should be, I think this is where you are going. But the tone is too casual. I am not getting a sense of foreboding.

Or am I completely wrong? If so, I have no sense of where this story is going.

What? It sounds as if you are saying that 1) an airship like a zeppelin, I assume. is a quiet, smoothe ride. True. I’ve ridden in a hot air balloon and that is true. It was so smoothe we didn’t notice we were going aloft until we looked down and saw the ground drifting away forty or so feet below. Then, 2) you talk about people paying big bucks to dine from a perspective only a bumpy and flimsy aircraft could provide. Huh? Is the bumpy and flimsy aircraft you mean a zeppelin? Maybe in bad weather that might be true, but that’s not when people usually paid to go up in either the Goodyear blimp or a hot air balloon basket.

Pilots cabin – wrong. You’ve got a possessive here. It’s either a singular pilot – pilot’s – or more than one pilot – pilots’

Even with a thick wall and a sealed door, the hum of the power plant - taking up most of the gondola You mention Tesla – okay. If this is a powered airship, how? Is the magic Tesla device powering it creating antigravity? Then it seems you would have a flying box being blown about by the wind which hardly – to me – qualifies it to being compared with zepplins and hot air balloons.

The Chinook helicopter tethered to the nose of Tesla I can’t picture this. Unless the helicopter is beating away at the air to support itself, I can’t see it “tethered” to anything up in the air. This would have to be a BIG “airship” to carry a helicopter on a platform anywhere though I personally would vote for slung under the airship.

Sorry, snapper. Maybe I’m wrong, but the details here don’t work for me yet. You haven’t started story, not really. Which is fine, but then you have to make the setting description sing beautifully, which it isn’t doing for me, again, not yet.

In general, I feel you're starting with too much exposition, and in particular this whole "it's supposed to be like X but it's actually not" doesn't feel right to me - it feels as if ou're somehow making excuses to the reader.

I'd actually start with Elizabeth feeling the migraine coming on, and then explain some of why (i.e. the whole shaking thing, and have her grumble that airships are supposed to be smooth). But I would like some hint of what's experimental about the airship, who she is and why she's on it (honestly, I'm not clear if she's a prisoner, a stowaway, crew, an observer, what), and where (other than over the San Gabriels) the story ight be going.

I think just a very slight rearranging of the sentences might make it work.

Here's a try:

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The maiden voyage of Telsa’s Legacy was the furthest thing from smooth and anything but quiet for Elizabeth. Riding in an airship was supposed to be a quiet and smooth experience. A century before, travelers would pay big bucks for the opportunity to dine from a perspective only a bumpy and flimsy aircraft could provide. However, even with a thick wall and a sealed door, the hum of the power plant - taking up most of the gondola - rattled and vibrated the pilot's cabin. The Chinook helicopter, tethered to the nose of Tesla, along with the high winds blowing over the San Gabriel range, jerked and tugged the experimental blimp like a car driven by someone learning to drive a stick. An hour out from Tesla’s hangar at Edwards Air Force base and Elizabeth could already feel a migraine creeping in.

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What do you think?

The 'drive stick' simile seems a bit anachronistic but I don't know what time period the story is set in so...
And the last line needs a slight rework but it all reads as a whole now...

What I really liked about it is it's thick.
What I mean by that is I've read some 13 lines that went by in a blink and/or had a lot of words but didn't say much. This one gave a lot of "feeling"

Quiet, smooth, hum, rattled and vibrated, high winds, jerked and tugged, migraine.

It provided some nice imagery and gave a nice sense of place.
Now we just need a problem other than the headache.

I think the ratio of showing to telling is off. Instead of describing the rough ride, you give us abstract comparisons. You could add simple conflict and tension while showing us the rough skies. Elizabeth could spill her drink on herself, she could shriek and be embarrassed, whatever, but you have an opportunity to provide some characterization and tension while showing us what is going on.

If the airship is like Tesla's idea (as I understand it) wind would have nothing to do with the flight. One of the things he thought was ridiculous was how easy it is for a plane to fall.

If this is done and you can wait until next week for a reply, I'd look over the rest.

Aircraft are very light with strong structures designed with a certain amount of flexibility to them. When describing the the door separating two compartments using the word "thick" loses that feeling. To muffle sounds and provide a heat barrier, light weight insulating material is used. I would suggest replacing the word "thick" with "insulated".

There are two types of engine powered airships- Blimps and dirigibles. The gasbag of a blimp has no internal structure. The gasbags of dirigibles have an internal structure. Zepplins are dirigibles designed by Count Ferdinand von Zepplin.

The area from which aircraft is controlled would be a cockpit or a flightdeck.

I doubt that an airship with engines large enough to have an engine room would be attached to the flightdeck. Of course, the engines of the Goodyear blimp are attached to flightdeck gondola, but they are small and mounted to pylons.

Related to the comment about period, the presence of the Chinook helicopter precludes it from being one hundred years ago

Why do I care?

I don't see anything interesting going on, if the maiden voyage of 'Telsa’s Legacy' was the 'hope of mankind' or something interesting I might be more inclined to understand why we're focusing on it. I'm not getting enough from this to care about either the MC or the ship.

I just sent this off the other day. Everyones comments helped me shape the opening. Hopefully it is good enough to get the submission editor to read on.