Comments on: A Brief History of the Goodyear Blimp

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:53:10 +0000

One of the blimps was headquartered north of Houston when I lived there. I always wished I could get a ride. Now there are three genuine Zeppelins in the world, and Silicon Valley has one of them (http://www.airshipventures.com). I actually *have* gotten to ride in that one.

By: Chris

Chris — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 18:09:34 +0000

Actually, “BLIMP” came from the designations of the original models. The first was the A-LIMP, with the second being the B-LIMP. Blimp just stuck, probably because alimp wasn’t as pronounceable.

By: Tdave

Tdave — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 16:16:51 +0000

I live north of a city. It used to be, years ago, that I would see a blimp whenever it was in town for a game at the stadium. Apparently there is a ‘road’ in the sky as such that the blimp would fly between my house and a radio station transmitter to the east, make an arc (U-turn) then fly past my house on the west side. I don’t know, but it’s as if they used the transmitter and the neighbors large swimming pool as a turning-around point. One time, during an important game, the blimp did that several times. It got to be that I could recognize the purr of the engines from inside the house and knew it was coming around again. (but) I haven’t seen a blimp in many years.

By: Mindy

Mindy — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 00:53:44 +0000

Its always exciting to see it parked in Carson, no matter how many times I’ve seen it. Its such an icon :)

By: PartiallyDeflected

PartiallyDeflected — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 00:38:33 +0000

Watching one of them land if pretty amazing. There are a lot of straps or cables hanging off the fuselage. The blimp noses down and the engine pushes it down close to the ground, then a small army grabs the cables and attaches them to tie-down points.

By: Bicycle Bill

Bicycle Bill — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 23:01:16 +0000

How a blimp got its name: there are two other possibilities.

One is that it is a reference to a stuffed-shirt, out-of-touch character in a early 20th century cartoon strip known as Colonel Blimp.

The other is that at the time the US military was using lighter-than-air balloons there were two classes. The ‘Zeppelin’-type ship, with a rigid frame was classified as “A-Rigid”; the frameless craft was classified as “B-limp” or ‘blimp’.

By: tiffany

tiffany — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 22:15:21 +0000

i live in goodyear, az! yes, after that goodyear. in 1917 the company purchased 16,000 acres in the az southwest valley for its great cotton growing conditions (still a lot of cotton out here). by WWII, the airfield was being used to build blimps. no blimps now, and the goodyear building belongs to lockheed. but, the goodyear blimp comes down to visit for NASCAR events (though the MetLife guys are parked outside now)…

By: SomeMel

SomeMel — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 22:06:03 +0000

I have some family that lives near Akron, and when the Blimp “crashed” about ten years ago, it landed in the field across the street from their house.

And by “crashed”, I mean, it sort of drifted down until it got caught in the trees and deflated. No one was hurt until one of the pilots tried to climb out of the gondola and turned his ankle.

My uncle regretted not charging for parking, as their yard was suddenly full of vehicles for the next two days so that people could gawk at the giant fin sticking out of the trees.

By: JohnHo

JohnHo — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:36:38 +0000

“The first airships were rigid and served as airborne aircraft carriers.” These were dirigibles, not blimps. The west-coast dirigible hangar, Hangar One, is still standing at the Moffett Field (now run by NASA). Hangar One is one of the world’s largest freestanding structures, covering 8 acres.

By: skz

skz — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 19:38:29 +0000

The Los Angeles blimp flies over our house. And we see it “parked” off the 405 fwy all the time.