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entry Dec 2004
Whatever happened to the
Goodyear blimp? I came across a
stray item the
other day, a news release by the German Zeppelin NT (for neue Technologie) corporation
("making new airships since 2001") in which the company denied that
they had just been bought by John Travolta. Indeed, they had had no
offer from John--or anyone else, for that matter. I have no idea how
that will turn out, nor am I particularly interested, but the word
"Zeppelin" naturally called forth the word "blimp" in my mind. Then,
just as naturally, "Goodyear blimp." And then my wife's dear old uncle
Massimo popped into my head, the only one I have ever known personally
to hitch a ride on one of those famous airships. Naples in the 1970s  In the
1970s, there was a Goodyear blimp, the Europa, moored up in Cisterna, near
Rome, as an advertising vehicle for the Goodyear factory there. (That
factory closed in the 1980s and the blimp went with it.) But the
craft made visits to Naples once in a while, just a short flight down
the coast. Massimo was a gentle old soul who never got to follow his
wanderlust. He whiled away hours at the train station, vicariously
coming and going with all those on the move, and when the song of the
open road got unbearably loud in his heart, he would go up to
Capodichino airport and watch planes take off. Then one day magic
struck him right out of the blue--literally out of the blue. The
Goodyear blimp was moored at the Naples airport one day when Massimo
was there. He was close enough to hear the captain yell out, "We have
room for a passenger. Anyone want a ride?" Uncle apparently trampled a
number of much larger and stronger mammals to death as he ran out to
get that one ride he had waited his whole life for. He spent an hour
floating above his native city, and the experience was one of the few
things he ever got really excited about when it came round to telling
stories at family gatherings. ("Oh, no. Is he going to talk about the
blimp, again? What's for dessert?")I haven't seen that blimp in a while. Goodyear went out of the business of mass producing those vehicles years ago after a history that began in 1925 when it took over the Zeppelin company as part of WW1 reparations from Germany. It even built American airships under the corporate name of Goodyear Zeppelin until the German half of that name was prudently dropped in WW2. Through wartime service and up until 1962 when the US Navy dropped the contract, the company made more than 300 airships. In those days, US Navy blimps flew submarine-watch patrols between Lakehurst (New Jersey) and Bermuda. They say that any headwind for the trip back to New Jersey was considered a good excuse to force another day's layover in Bermuda. It was a good job.  Today,
there are only
three "real" Goodyear blimps (that is, actually built by Goodyear), all
of them stationed in the United States. There are, however, about 25
newer airships flying today, most of them made since 1989 by the
American Blimp Corporation (ABC) in Oregon. (New blimps are small
compared to the old ones. The modern ABC craft are about 60 meters (180
feet) long. The old Zeppelins, including the Hindenberg, which crashed
in Lakehurst, NJ, in 1937, were over 800 feet in length. (By the way,
the Hindenberg disaster
[photo, left] was not the greatest one in
airship history. There were 37 deaths out of 70 passengers and crew.
The worst loss of life was when the USS
Akron, a military airship, went
down at sea off the New Jersey coast in 1933, killing all but 3 of the
76 persons aboard.)A few modern craft are made by the new Zeppelin corporation mentioned above. (Today, that company runs tours over Lake Constance from their airfield in Friedrichshafen, Germany.) Goodyear has purchased four of the newer airships from ABC. Two of them are stationed in Europe: The Spirit of Europe I and The Spirit of Europe II. The former was in the skies over Rome for the 2000 millennium celebration, but it didn't come to Naples. I do recall seeing the Fuji blimp over Naples a few years ago, though--but, come on, who wants to ride in the Fuji blimp! Are you kidding? I do. Mr. Fuji-san, bwana-sahib, if you are reading this... (For a related item, see "Zeppelin raid on Naples") |