Offbeat | Goodyear retires blimps but keeps familiar form in flight

Goodyear has let the helium out of the last of its fabled fleet of blimps, but the company’s flight program will continue.

About two dozen employees were on hand yesterday to witness the deflation of California-based Spirit of Innovation.

But shed no tears, blimp fans, you’ll still see a familiar blue-and-gold form floating over your favorite sports event or awards show.

Although the blimp’s replacement, Wingfoot Two, will look about the same when it arrives at Goodyear’s airship base in Carson later this year, it will be a semi-rigid dirigible.

Such aircraft, one of which has already replaced Goodyear’s Florida blimp, have a frame, which means they maintain their shape when the helium is drained. Blimps, on the other hand, go flat. Wingfoot Two, currently operating in Ohio, will be replaced by yet another dirigible when it leaves there for Southern California.

Far more important to Goodyear is that the new airships are faster, quieter, larger, easier to fly and more maneuverable than the blimps it introduced more than 90 years ago. Still, the company plans to keep calling the new models blimps.

“Because a Goodyear Semi-rigid Dirigible doesn’t roll off the tongue,” laughed company airship historian Eddie Ogden.

Crew members yesterday yanked a rip line to open a section at the top of the blimp’s big gas bag, known as an envelope. It took about two minutes for it to crumple to the ground. AP