Goodyear Blimp Part 3: From Zeppelin to Goodyear: Discover the History & Future of Airships
Released on 09/05/2014
(mid-tempo chimes)
There's experimental airships now
that they're looking to use, similar to a zeppelin,
to move cargo to remote areas of the world.
Then that could be used for anything from food
to construction materials.
So they're looking at things like that.
I know the government, military,
they look into a lot of different types
of uses for airships.
I've heard some of the larger airships
that have been out there in development
for carrying heavy cargo, and trying
to be able to stay up in the air
for long periods of time.
[Chris] Those are the kinds of things that I see,
on an airship like this being able to be used for.
We started off with the collaboration with zeppelin
in the early 1900s, and now we're back again.
So it's kind of project full-circle for us.
[Chris] The old ships are called GZ20s,
and GZ stands for Goodyear Zeppelin.
Zeppelin was leading the build.
They're the manufacturer,
but we were the technical support team.
(uptempo music)
Zeppelin was the first company to really have
a true airship airline.
[Doug] You look at it and say,
wow that's really a part of American history.
Goodyear started their airship history
in about 1911, with building
the first envelope for the Akron Vaniman.
These would've been hydrogen-filled airships at the time.
Our current airships are all helium-filled.
This also shows a pretty good look at the gondola here
and how it's attached with cables away from the car.
Because the hydrogen gas was flammable,
so they wanted anything that had spark
to be away from the envelope.
1925 was our first blimp, it was the Pilgrim.
This was the first helium-filled airship.
(jubilant music)
We're involved in emergency response
and relief plans for several different cities.
We do a lot of stuff with the National Park services,
or the US Wildlife folks,
and things like that up and down the coastline.
There could be opportunities
for maybe some scientific missions,
maybe some ability to do atmospheric studies.
[Chris] The new Goodyear blimp
is a whole new chapter in airship operations.
There are some versatile uses with airships,
so I hope they do become mainstream.
(exuberant chime)
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Goodyear Blimp Part 2: How Many Pilots Does it Take to Fly the New Goodyear Airship?
Goodyear Blimp Part 3: From Zeppelin to Goodyear: Discover the History & Future of Airships
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