New Goodyear "blimp".

F

Falcon

DV8
Location
So. California
One of the new Goodyear blimps is flying over the Los Angeles harbor right now.

It's too faraway to shoot a pic or I'd show you. Looks good with my binoculars, however.

I've read about them; rigid structures inside; more room in the cabin, faster etc.

I've been waiting for them and now they're here. Maybe we'll see more of them hovering
over big sporting events and undoubtedly over the Rose Parade in a couple more months.
 

I remember reading a article some years ago about the practicality of using blimps to haul cargo of all kinds across the country instead of trains and big diesel trucks. It's never come to pass YET.
 
Everybody needs to get a blimp!

MajorGrimHarvestmen-small.gif
 

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Falcon said:
One of the new Goodyear blimps is flying over the Los Angeles harbor right now.

It's too faraway to shoot a pic or I'd show you. Looks good with my binoculars, however.

I've read about them; rigid structures inside; more room in the cabin, faster etc.

I've been waiting for them and now they're here. Maybe we'll see more of them hovering
over big sporting events and undoubtedly over the Rose Parade in a couple more months.
Click to expand...

I saw one floating over my neighborhood about a year or so ago. I wonder if it's because ESPN is near. I can't think of another reason but it was cool!

Animal Planet has The Puppy Bowl every year instead of Superbowl. Their blimp is navigated by tiny hamsters, lol.
 
The house I grew up in was about a mile or two from the Goodyear Airdock where they built many of them. They often flew right over our house very close to the ground. It was a big deal. We all ran outside to watch them when we were kids. No blue color back then, just black and silver.

Contrary to what one might believe, they were *very* noisy, at least the ones built back in the 50's were.
 
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Cool :cool:. I knew nothing about this Falcon, Lon, and Ken but just read that today's airships (is that the same as blimps?) don't pollute, use a fraction of the fuel, could conceivably carry a load of heavy equipment like tractors, backhoes, and road graders from the factory to the needed location in the future, and can land anywhere as they don't require a big runway according to Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-there-a-future-for-airships/
 
Although I'm not afraid of flying and have even been in a hot air balloon once, I don't think I'd want to be in a blimp.

Maybe I can't get the Hindenburg disaster out of my mind when I hear the word "Blimp".
 
I went up in a Goodyear blimp back in the early 70's. It was amazingly quiet. We were up for about an hour and circled around the Indianapolis 500 track a couple of times.

I think I still have the certificate they gave us around somewhere. The pilot told us a funny story about a hopped-up guy who jumped aboard and tried to hijack one of the blimps a couple of years earlier; he demanded to be flown to Cuba. He said that he and the copilot sat on the guy until the police showed up.
 
Way back in the late '70's when I was flying for Air Wisconsin, we were descending into Cleveland when we saw something weird just below us. Holy Cow, it was a Goodyear blimp in the "no fly zone" or "restricted air space" for light commercial and private aircraft. The pilot screwed up somehow and got caught in the heavy traffic landing area. I think they were fined and put on probation. BTW, I did come to find out that the blimp was in town for some big Browns football game.

Also, when I went to college at Kent State, I lived in Akron for awhile and I would go by the Goodyear Hangar out by the Rubber Bowl everyday on my to and from school. Sometimes the blimp was outside the hangar, but mostly it wasn't. I would have loved to have taken a ride inside of one.
 
oldman said:
....Also, when I went to college at Kent State, I lived in Akron for awhile and I would go by the Goodyear Hangar out by the Rubber Bowl everyday on my to and from school. Sometimes the blimp was outside the hangar, but mostly it wasn't. I would have loved to have taken a ride inside of one.
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Oldman, when did you live in Akron? I also commuted from Akron to Kent State ('64-'68). Took George Washington Blvd, past the Derby Downs, and the Airdock, around the airport circle and caught the expressway. Maybe we passed each other? Small world. :)

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oldman said:
... I would have loved to have taken a ride inside of one.
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I would have loved to have taken a tour inside the Goodyear Airdock. It was always a restricted area. Back in the 90's I visited with a friend and the gate was open, so we went driving right up to the airdock, as close as you could get in a car, and the door was open. Someone ran us down and detained us until they called in security checks. Turns out someone left the gate open by mistake. We were lucky, and got a good laugh out of it. My mother worked inside for a short while during the war.

385.3771.jpg
 
Goodyear Airdock
This massive airship factory is so large that it has its own indoor weather.
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"The almost comically large hanger stands over 200 feet tall and well over 1,000 feet long, all without any interior supports like pillars or struts. At the time of its completion the building was the largest of its kind in the world. The interior of the building holds over a million cubic meters of space in which to create massive lighter-than-air ships".

...even the guy filming this fell asleep!:rolleyes:
 
Don't nothing come over Oklahoma like that. We see a blimp flying overhead we'd think it a tornado coming down sideways or something or a big bomb accidently dropped from something. Would scare half of us to kingdom come.
 
Hey Lara,

Blimps are not in the same category as Airships and Dirigibles.

Long ago, this designation was made between the two:

The Airship was "Class A, Rigid", and the Blimp was "Class B, Limp". (Get the "Blimp" connection?)

The Airship was actualy built like a Ship or Aircraft, with keel, frames, bulkheads, longerons, and compartments.

The Blimp had none of those; it was just a Limp Badder inflated with Helium, the lifting gas. When it was deflated, it just lay like a blanket on the ground.

When the Airship was deflated it still kept its rigid form.

The largest airship ever in service was the German Hindenberg, 804 feet long. it crashed and burned on May 6, 1937.

The Goodyear Blimp, which has been around for over a half-century, was just 191 feet long.

The newer Goodyear Bimp is semi-rigid and is 246 feet long. Ho Hum.

Some famous Dirigibles (Airships) of the 1920's and 1930's were:

Zeppelin (German)
Hindenberg (German)
Norge (Italian)
Shenandoah (USA)
Macon (USA)
Los Angeles (USA)
Akron (USA)

These were the Queens of the Skies!

Hal
 

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