Celebrating the Goodyear Blimp’s 100th Birthday

No matter what someone’s level of interest in aircraft may be, they can generally tell what type of “airplane” is flying overhead by their reaction to the sound it makes. The sounds of a jet fighter or helicopter guarantee a good look skyward. At the same time, a light private airplane may only elicit a sideways glance, and a commercial jet might not garner any reaction whatsoever.

But the one sound guaranteed to earn long, often longing glances upward is the unmistakable thrum of a Goodyear Blimp as it passes overhead.

And that simple irresistibility is why Goodyear Tire & Rubber has operated its fleet of flying ambassadors since 1925. Like so many aviation innovations, the history of Goodyear Blimps starts with the dream of one man.

Goodyear’s first CEO, Paul Litchfield, was an aviation enthusiast who established the company’s first aeronautical department in 1910. He recognized significant potential in expanding the company’s role in the emerging aviation industry through rubber-coated fabrics and coatings for both airplanes and lighter-than-air aircraft. In 1912, Goodyear built its first balloon to fly in national and international competitions.

The program’s success led to the development of various coated balloon and blimp envelopes and, ultimately, to a contract with the U.S. Navy to build entire airships. At about this time, Litchfield came up with the idea of building company-branded blimps to market Goodyear across the country.

Of course, the first step in bringing that idea to fruition was building a dedicated base to manufacture and operate the company’s fleet. In 1917, Goodyear began constructing its Wingfoot Lake hangar in Suffield Township, Ohio. The massive 400-foot-long hangar was large enough to house not only the company’s blimps but also production of U.S. Navy airships. Between 1917 and 1925, Goodyear built some 25 blimps for the U.S. military.

The Wingfoot Lake facility is now the world’s longest continually operating airship base and remains the primary home of Goodyear’s Airship Operations.

In 1919, Goodyear built its first non-commissioned blimp and christened it the Wingfoot Airship Express. Like all seagoing ships that came before, Goodyear continued the tradition of christening its airships to help guarantee luck in the open skies. Alas, the airship was lost in a crash later that year.

Along with the Wingfoot Airship Express, the company also launched three smaller “pony blimps.” At just 95 feet long, the smaller blimps were shipped to airshows across the country to showcase Goodyear and the potential for everyday lighter-than-air travel.

1925 to 1945: Everything from Advertising to Aerial Bombing

The next significant advancement in Goodyear airship design came on June 3, 1925, when the company launched the most modern non-rigid airship of its time and the first to be flown using helium. Just a month after leaving the hangar, the first true Goodyear Blimp was christened Pilgrim. 

With Goodyear proudly painted on its envelope, Pilgrim logged more than 95,000 flight miles. It was joined in 1928 by Puritan, which became the country’s first permanently licensed airship. Puritan was the first TZ model blimp, which served as the template for the next decade of the company’s growing fleet.

In 1930, the third edition, Defender, became the first airship in the world to be equipped with a lighted sign, dubbed the Neon-O-Gram. The first Enterprise joined the fleet in 1934, and with a 123,000-cu-ft envelope (nearly 40,000 cu ft bigger than Puritan), it was the biggest of the fleet to date.

In 1942, Goodyear’s Resolute was the only airship based along the western coast of the U.S. That and the other four blimps in the company’s fleet were officially drafted—crews and all—into service with the U.S. Navy.

With the ability to fly slowly, acting as spotters, and the added benefit of dropping depth charges to drive enemy submarines away, airships were assigned to escort Navy fleets. In all, the blimp fleet flew some 37,000 missions and helped guide nearly 90,000 vessels along the Atlantic corridor without a single loss to an enemy submarine.

By the war’s end, Goodyear had built more than 320 blimps, most of which were delivered to the U.S. Navy and Army. There have only been 31 officially christened as Goodyear Blimps.

1946 to 1968: A Star Is Born

At the end of the war, and with the promise of a post-war boom in tire sales, Goodyear purchased seven of its blimps back from the Navy, with a five-ship fleet returning to their promotional roles as the Ranger, Volunteer, Enterprise, Mayflower, and Puritan.

To support the company’s aggressive marketing efforts, the following 20 years saw Goodyear’s aerial ambassadors experience numerous technological upgrades to help them expand their promotional envelopes.

One of the most noteworthy and one that would set a foundation for missions that the blimps still serve today came on Jan. 1, 1955, when a Goodyear Blimp provided live aerial coverage of the Rose Bowl Parade and Rose Bowl football game—both firsts for a national TV broadcast.

The advent of live aerial coverage transformed the way we view outdoor sports. Since that historic broadcast, Goodyear’s fleet of blimps has covered more than 2,000 events, including championships for nearly every major U.S. sport and the Olympic Games.

In 2019, the Goodyear Blimp became the first non-player or coach to be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.

Of course, the blimps aren’t tethered strictly to sports; they’ve also become cemented in American pop culture. From hovering over the New York World’s Fair in 1964 to appearances in major movies, including Help!, A Star is Born, Black Sunday, and Scarface, the blimp also served as the iconic lyrical image in the video for Ice Cube’s chart-topping 1993 song It Was A Good Day.

1969 to Today: The Blimp Becomes a Zeppelin

On April 25, 1969, the Goodyear Blimp America was christened. It wasn’t just a new blimp, but a whole new kind of blimp: it was the first of new-generation GZ-20 models.

At 192 feet tip-to-tail and with a 202,700-cu-ft envelope, the twin 210-horsepower Continental IO-360-powered GZ-20 would serve as the base design for the Goodyear Blimps until the last one’s retirement in 2017.

In 1972, parts for another new GZ-20 blimp were flown to Cardington, England, to assemble the Europa. After its completion and certification, the first internationally based Goodyear Blimp was flown to its home in Capena, Italy, where it operated until 1987.

The next significant advancement in Goodyear’s airship program came in 2014 when it introduced a completely new aircraft designed to the company’s specifications by Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik in Friedrichshafen, Germany. The first of the new NT series was christened Wingfoot One.

In 2018, Goodyear christened Wingfoot Three, marking the fleet’s complete transition to the Zeppelin-designed NT model. Today, all of Goodyear’s U.S.-based blimps' structures are built at Zeppelin’s facilities in Germany and then sent to the Wingfoot Lake facility for final assembly by a joint team of Goodyear and Zeppelin technicians.

The current fleet of Goodyear Blimps is equipped with Garmin G500H touchscreen displays with synthetic vision. Also included in the avionics suite are dual Garmin GTN650 touchscreen GPS Navigators, Garmin’s remote ADS-B Out/In transponder, audio panel, helicopter terrain awareness/warning, traffic alert system, dual Barco ICAS screens, and a standby display for IFR compliance.

By definition, blimps are non-rigid airships, and the Zeppelin NT’s aluminum and carbon-fiber internal framework technically makes it a semi-rigid airship. But, while they may no longer be a Wikipedia-defined “Blimp,” the fleet will always be affectionately known as Goodyear Blimps.

100 Years Young and Going Strong

Today’s blimp fleet consists of Wingfoot One (N1A), based in Suffield; Wingfoot Two (N2A), based in Pompano Beach, Florida; and Wingfoot Three (N3A) in Carson, California. There is also a fourth Goodyear-branded airship operated by Zeppelin and based in Friedrichshafen, Germany, which is owned and operated by Goodyear’s manufacturing partner, Zeppelin.

But no matter where the U.S.-registered aircraft are based, Michael Dougherty, chief pilot and operations manager for Goodyear Airship Operations, stressed that safety and consistency are paramount.

“We have 75 full-time Goodyear Airship associates that operate as a single organization,” he explained. “We are an ISBAO Stage III [registered] corporate aviation operator. Having an icon as recognizable as the Goodyear Blimp, we need to make sure we are doing everything right. People are often surprised by that level of professionalism. This isn’t a flying circus-type thing.

“Safety management is key. We move pilots and maintenance specialists around a bit to help with scheduling. Each team has four pilots, two crew chiefs, five field mechanics, four broadcast technicians—we own all the broadcast equipment on the blimps—and ground support mechanics handling all of the trucks, mooring gear, the ground service equipment we need, and three general crews to round out operational support.”

As Dougherty described the operation, the Blimp’s support team is basically an FBO/MRO on wheels. “We are self-reliant for most of our missions. We can’t just go to your regular FBO to buy parts for the blimp. Our traveling technicians keep track of maintenance, and if we need something shipped to their location, they order it from our maintenance control group in Suffield,” he said.

That’s critical to keeping the airships in the air, considering that each of the U.S.-based blimps averages 90 to 120 RONs and 400 to 600 flight hours a year.

“The blimp is a pretty needy aircraft. We have two 40-foot-long mast trucks that weigh 64,000 pounds each. When we get to a site, they unfold vertically with the nose mooring mast,” Dougherty continued. “We can’t land without the ground crew and mast, so we have a spare. When both trucks are working, we can move faster by positioning one team at the next location.”

It’s not only its reliance on the mooring truck that makes the blimp “needy.” Dougherty said that when the blimp is moored, someone has to be with it all the time to regulate the ballast to maintain equilibrium so the ship never rises too high, straining the mooring link, gets too heavy, or risks striking the ground.

“If the winds are more than 10 knots, someone has to be in the cockpit ‘flying’ all the time,” he added. “It’s like a giant windsock. It’s certified up to a category one hurricane with winds up to 90 miles per hour.”

Dougherty said that during his career, he and his crew have carried passengers ranging from regular folks to former presidents, astronauts, sports and entertainment celebrities, and everyone in between. And it seems that one thing surprises them all.

“I think the biggest surprise people have with the Goodyear Blimp is the size and professionalism of our organization. They see it flying low slow and think it’s super simple—it’s not,” he said. “It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever learned to fly. It’s like flying a boat [it’s an airship, remember], so you have to be part sailor and part pilot, and it takes training and dedication.

“Without the 20 people on the ground, the blimp wouldn’t go anywhere,” Dougherty said. “It’s a needy aircraft that requires a team of specialists to keep it in the air. I can tell you we have a super-solid team, and I’m really proud to be part of it all.”

As part of its centennial celebration, Goodyear has announced that it will have two blimps at the Experimental Aircraft Association's AirVenture this year in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. That’s something no blimp fan wants to miss.