Icon of the Sky: 100 Years of the Goodyear Blimp and How Akron's Airship Legacy Took Flight

Words to Know

Airship: Any vessel that relies on lighter-than-air gas to stay airborne

Dirigible: A powered steerable airship, be it one that’s rigid with a frame or non-rigid

Blimp: A non-rigid airship

Photo provided by The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company Records at The University of Akron Archives and Special Collections

Pilgrim group shot, transcontinental blimp race, 1931

On June 3, 1925, a pilgrim took to the air in the Akron area.

The Pilgrim was the first Goodyear Blimp. Initially fueled by hydrogen, it got its name in its July 18 christening at the Stow-Kent airport. The Pilgrim was built at the Wingfoot Lake hangar, which was built in Suffield Township in 1917. It was Goodyear’s first commercial non-rigid airship, and, on July 17, it became the first to use helium, not hydrogen, for its lift. Unlike others, its gondola was flush with the envelope containing lighter-than-air gas. “It was by far the most advanced non-rigid airship at the time,” says Dan Smith, senior communications specialist for the Goodyear Blimp. “It’s a testament to the ingenuity at Goodyear.”

For a century now, the Goodyear Blimp has been an important form of advertising for the company, an opportunity for innovation and a subject of joy wherever it goes. “They bring a warm fuzzy feeling to people who see them,” says Eric Brothers, chairman of The Lighter-Than-Air Society.

Dan Grossman, aviation historian: Man flew in an airship before he flew in an airplane. Even after the Wright brothers flew in December 1903, airplanes couldn’t do much. Airships could carry lots of people, lots of cargo, could travel hundreds of miles.

Photo provided by The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company Records at The University of Akron Archives and Special Collections

Pilgrim landing on O'Neils, 1928

By the beginning of World War I, airships were incredibly capable. They could travel huge distances and carry huge amounts of bombs. Airplanes were so primitive, they couldn’t go high enough to shoot zeppelins [in the early WWI era]. Everyone in the 1920s thought airships would be the future and play a huge role in the future of aviation.

Smith: Goodyear had built 20 or 25 blimps for the military before it built its own branded blimp.

Brothers: Goodyear had partnered with the German Zeppelin Co. in 1923 with the idea of building big passenger airships.

Grossman: [Goodyear executive] Paul Litchfield had a fascination with airships at the time. … Litchfield was pretty much the guy who got Goodyear involved in airships.

Brothers: They were basically promoted by Litchfield as an aerial yacht. It could carry three passengers, including the pilot. After the Pilgrim’s success, they started building larger blimps.

Grossman: Goodyear built two of the largest airships, the Akron and the Macon, in partnership with the Zeppelin Co. Goodyear and the government had very high hopes for them.

The U.S.S. Macon and U.S.S. Akron airships, both constructed in the Akron Airdock, which was built in 1929, met unfortunate ends. In 1933, the Akron crashed and sank into the Atlantic Ocean. There were just three survivors from its crew of 76. Two years later, the Macon crashed off the coast of California. Lessons learned from the Akron crash, including the addition of life preservers — combined with more favorable weather conditions — meant that only two lives were lost of the crew of 83. But blimps remained an important asset for national defense for decades. At the Wingfoot Lake hangar, 104 airships were assembled in the wake of the Pearl Harbor attack.

Brothers: When World War II came around, Goodyear built more than 200 blimps for the military, and some of the Goodyear blimps were pressed into service as well. During wartime, they could put magnetic detectors on them, and they were able to track submarines.

Grossman: The United States’ coastal submarine defense in World War II was almost entirely blimps and even into the 1950s and 1960s during the Cold War. Blimps could stay in the air for long periods of time hovering. And they were less expensive than airplanes. There was no plane that could spend 24 or 48 hours in the air. Our national coastal defense through World War II and into the 1950s was almost entirely built by Goodyear.

Photo provided by Goodyear Rubber & Tire

5 blimps, 1969

In addition to military capabilities, the blimp’s marketing potential was seen early on. Endurance flights expanded coverage, including the Snow Bird, which set a record in 1957 for flying 11 days straight from Massachusetts to Europe, Africa and Key West, Florida, without reloading or refueling.

Grossman: Goodyear’s a rubber company, and airships at the time were made of rubber. Now blimps are used to advertise a lot of products that have nothing to do with blimps. But it made sense that Goodyear used airships to advertise — and Goodyear built them. You were standing there, you looked up and thought, Goodyear designed and built this, maybe I should buy tires from them. ... It advertised their technical and manufacturing capability.

Brothers: They really became a flying billboard. Goodyear pioneered lighting the airships. They started with neon lighting in the 1930s.

The end of World War II ushered in the jet age. Although a world envisioned by Goodyear with passenger travel by airship didn’t materialize, the blimp continued to be at the forefront of technology. On Jan. 1, 1955, the Akron-built Enterprise provided live aerial coverage of the Tournament of Roses Parade and the Rose Bowl game, which saw Ohio State defeat the University of Southern California. Developed at Wingfoot Lake, the Skytacular animated electronic four-color sign was introduced on the Mayflower at the Indy 500 in 1966.

Brothers: As early as World War I, they were testing radios on blimps. [Radio pioneer] Lee de Forest actually flew on a blimp to test wireless equipment. As early as 1927, they used the Pilgrim to broadcast radio programs.

Smith: Blimps were fairly ubiquitous over sporting events, but 1955 was the first live, aerial view of a televised event. They worked with NBC, who had coverage of the Rose Parade and the Rose Bowl at the time. The production in 1955 was as much a learning experience as it was the start of something immediately. It wasn’t until the 1960s that we bought our own camera equipment. Before that, we were facilitating network coverage. Now it’s a Goodyear camera with a Goodyear technician and Goodyear guys on the ground. It’s really our bread and butter.

The camera’s not much bigger than a soccer ball, under the cockpit, operated from inside. And now we’re shooting in 4K, instead of standard definition in 1955. In 2004, we did the first high-definition broadcast from a blimp. You can’t just rest on your laurels. Every time technology moves forward, we’ve been looking at what we can do with it.

Photo provided by Goodyear Rubber & Tire

Mayflower, 1977

In 1969, Goodyear launched its first GZ-20 blimps, the biggest Goodyear commercial blimp at the time, designed to accommodate the Skytacular and then the Super Skytacular. “When people close their eyes and picture a blimp, it’s usually a GZ-20,” Smith says. The GZ-22 Spirit of Akron launched in 1987. But the fleet aged, and in 2011, Goodyear — by then no longer making its own blimps — wanted to replace them. Goodyear announced a new partnership with the Zeppelin Co. to make more airships — more than 75 years after the dissolution of their previous partnership during World War II. For the first time, the Goodyear brand used a semi-rigid airship, Wingfoot One, to advertise itself in 2014.

Smith: We’re currently flying a semi-rigid airship. It’s got a triangular “rib cage,” which allows us to support the engines and tail fins, but it’s not really supporting the envelope. We can have a glass cockpit so we can monitor radar better than ever before. We can monitor air traffic better than ever before. We can vector. We can hover in place. We can take off and land like a helicopter. We can do so much more. The engines are now on the envelope, and that gets the noise out of the cabin. You had to wear headsets just to talk to the people next to you. Now you can get up and walk around, nobody has to have headsets on, and it’s more like an airline cabin.

Now the biggest complaint is people say it’s too quiet. They say, I used to know when to go outside to see it, but now I don’t even hear it overhead. That’s been an unexpected change.

Michael Dougherty, chief pilot of operations for the Goodyear Blimps: The only thing that’s the same from the old blimps is the helium inside. It’s different for the pilots. It’s different for the ground crew. The GZ-20 had the same flight control technology as the Pilgrim. It was super rudimentary and very original to the aircraft. The new airships feature modern sidestick “fly-by-wire” control systems. The flying experience is a very mental one, compared with a very physical one with the old airships.

I compare the old ones with your basic 1960s muscle car. It was cool and fun to cruise around in. This is like a 2020 Ferrari. You get the creature comforts and the speed. But the coolest part is sharing the experience. Airline pilots lock the door and are pretty much just in the cockpit. You get to share it in the cabin with people who are happy to be there, for whom this could be a bucket list experience.

Photo provided by The Lighter-than-Air Society

Pilgrim Christening

Today, the Akron area-based Goodyear Blimp operates out of the Wingfoot Lake hangar. The Akron Airdock has been sold to LTA Research, a company founded by Google co-founder Sergey Brin. At the Akron Airdock, LTA Research intends to build the all-electric Pathfinder 3, which would be one of largest airships built in the U.S. since Goodyear’s Macon in the early 1930s, according to LTA Research.

Many events — including a national tour, along with a few surprises — are planned for the centennial, and beyond that. The Goodyear Blimp remains a symbol of Akron recognized around the world.

Brothers: Other companies use blimps for advertising: Fuji, MetLife, Blockbuster and plenty of others. But the one everyone remembers is Goodyear. It’s an enduring advertising icon.

Smith: We want people to really see it. This is an important piece of history and culture, and it means so much to so many people. That’s something we should never lose sight of. That’s how we got to 100 years, and that’s how we’ll get to the next 100 years.

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