While today the Goodyear blimps are invariable associated with sporting events and used for
advertising purposes, this was not always the case.
Goodyear started out in the “blimp” industry by making the envelopes for these types of
airships.
They then worked into creating the airships themselves and were soon awarded with a government
contract to do just that.
Five years after Goodyear created its first airship, two massive rigid aircraft named
the USS Akron and the USS Macon were born.
These flying wonders were created for the US Navy and carried specialty planes like
the F9C-2 Curtiss Sparrowhawks, which could be launched and retrieved during flight for
long range scouting and defensive purposes as neither airships were equipped with weapons.
These massive aircraft were built with internal metal frames, could carry and maintain up
to five planes while airborne, and were over two football fields in length, weighing in
at a stunning 400,000 pounds (181,437 kg).
6.5 million cubic feet of helium was needed to lift the monumental ships into the sky.
On April 3, 1933, the Akron was sent out to calibrate radio direction to find equipment
along the northeastern coast of the United States.
Only a few minutes after midnight, the aircraft was hit with a series of strong winds which
caused the ship’s tail to strike water and crash.
A heartbreaking 73 lives were lost that night with only three survivors.
February 12, 1935, the Macon joined its sister aircraft when it hit a storm and its upper
vertical fin was damaged.
The blimp rapidly climbed to a dangerous altitude of 5,000 feet, which caused the automatic
gas valves to open and release helium before its unavoidable decent.
The Akron crashed in the Atlantic Ocean- the USS Macon met a similar fate, crashing into
the Pacific.
Thankfully, due to the tragic loss of the Akron two years prior, the Macon was equipped
with life-jackets and rafts which saved 81 lives and only 2 were lost.
Despite the loss of the USS Akron and the USS Macon and the declining popularity of
these types of aircraft, Goodyear continued to design and build airships and between the
1940s and the 1950s, the company built a series of surveillance airships for the U.S. government.
These blimps were created to watch and protect merchant ships along the coast, as well as
monitor and send early warning of an incoming attack if present.
One of history’s most historic aircraft, the Goodyear-built ZPG-2 (The Snow Bird),
was among the surveillance fleet.
At the time, the record for continuous flight without landing or refueling was set at 200
hours and 26 minutes.
On March 4, 1957, Snow Bird took flight from NAS South Weymouth near Boston, Massachusetts
and after an impressive eleven day voyage, the airship landed at Naval Air Station Key
West, Florida on March 15, 1957, breaking the previous record for continuous flight.
Since then, four Goodyear blimps have crashed due to bad weather or malfunctions, the most
recent accident was The Spirit of Safety which, ironically enough, on June 12, 2011 caught
fire.
The Australian pilot, Mike Nerandzic, was a hero during that crash.
The three survivors of the crash told the media that the blimp had caught fire during
landing.
Once the blimp was a mere two meters off the ground, Mike told the three passengers to
jump to safety, which they did.
In his last moments, rather than attempt to escape himself, Mike steered away the burning
blimp from his ground crew and was later found dead at the controls.
As to how the Goodyear blimp became inexorably associated with sporting events, this happened
in 1960 when Goodyear, with the end of their government contract for airships looming,
switched gears and decided to try using their blimps as aerial platforms for cameras during
sporting events.
This provided a service for sports coverage outlets while simultaneously functioning as
a highly visible advertising platform for Goodyear itself.
The first such event partially filmed by cameras aboard a Goodyear blimp was the 1960 Orange
Bowl in Miami.
Needless to say, this has worked out exceedingly well for the company with Goodyear blimps
traveling an average of 100,000 miles per year to various major sporting events, which
is saying something considering they travel at an average speed of just 35 mph (about
16 km/h), though they are capable of speeds as high as 53 mph with favorable winds and
the twin 210 horsepower engines at full throttle.
Contrary to what you may read, the word “blimp” did not come about from the fact that “Type
B” airships in the United States were non-rigid, hence Type B-limp.
While there were Type A and Type B class airships in the U.S., the word “blimp” popped up
in 1916 in England, a year before the Type B classification in the U.S.
There is also no documented evidence of the U.S. Type-B class ever being called “limp”.
As to the real origin of the word “blimp”, this is up for debate, but it’s generally
credited to British Navy officer Lt. A.D.
Conningham.
The story goes that he coined the word after the noise that’s made when flicking or tapping
the airship’s outer envelope.