Blimp fleet revised
LOS ANGELES — Goodyear is letting the helium out of the last of its fabled fleet of blimps.
But shed no tears, blimp fans: you’ll still see a familiar blue-and-gold form floating over your favorite sports event or awards show long after the California-based “Spirit of Innovation” goes flat Tuesday.
But although its replacement, “Wingfoot Two,” will look about the same when it arrives at Goodyear’s California airship base in Carson later this year, it will be a semi-rigid dirigible.
Such aircraft, one of which has already replaced Goodyear’s Florida blimp, have a frame, which means they maintain their shape when the helium is drained. Blimps, on the other hand, go flat. “Wingfoot Two,” currently operating in Ohio, will be replaced by yet another dirigible when it leaves there for California.
Far more important to Goodyear is that the new airships are faster, quieter, larger, easier to fly and more maneuverable than the blimps it introduced more than 90 years ago. Still, the company plans to keep calling the new models blimps.
“Because a Goodyear Semi-rigid Dirigible doesn’t roll off the tongue,” laughed company airship historian Eddie Ogden.
The switch to dirigibles offers a similar-looking, cigar-shaped flying machine but one that’s 246 feet long, nearly the length of a football field and 50 feet longer than the old blimps. With room for three engines instead of two, it will be able to hit freeway speeds of more than 70 mph and turn on a dime.
The quieter engines also will provide an advantage in covering golf tournaments, Ogden said, by eliminating the racket that can sometimes disrupt golfers lining up their putts.
