The Good Year Blimps

Good Year Tire and Rubber Company is the world’s largest tire company and No.1 tire maker in North America and Latin America and No.2 in Europe. Good Year operates more than 60 plants in 26 countries. In addition, Good Year is best known to America for its blimp and in the United States there are 3 Good year blimps:

• The Spirits of Good year, based in Akron

• The Spirits of America, based in Carson, and

• The Stars & Stripes located in Pompano Beach.

The fleet of blimps collectively operated by Good Year Tire and Rubber Company are known as “The Good Year Blimp” and are used for advertising and as a television camera platform for aerial view for sports events. Good Year started producing airships in 1911 and introduced its blimps “Pilgrim” in 1925.

There are three modern types of Good Year blimps (GZ-19, GZ-20 and GZ-22).

The GZ stands here for Good year-Zeppelin; it was collaboration partnership with German company as both were making airships together. However, these three classes came into being, many year after this partnership had ended during the start of World War II. The GZ-19 was introduced in 1963 and remained there till 1978 after the loss of N38A. The design for these types of blimps resembles the one with U.S Navy’s L class blimps.

The GZ-20 was introduced in 1969, the first two were the America (N10A) and Columbia (N3A). The GZ-20 is slightly longer than the GZ-19. This Good Year-Zeppelin was two fuels injected, producing 210 horsepower each. The GZ-20 blimps that operate in U.S have seating of only six passengers and no seat belts are required. The Good Year will allow only passengers that are corporate guests of the company and the members of the press. No public rides are offered and this has been their policy.

The airship ‘spirit of America is Good Year’s newest airship and the third to operate from California. The spirits of America make daily 10 flights. This airship provides a bird’s eye-view for television coverage for special events. During daylight time, it also took Good Year clients and sales people for ride of 45 minutes. After dark, it is used to promote the charities and for other causes using the 165,000 LED’s with more than 256 colors.

The third airship operated by the Good Year Tire and the Rubber Company in the United States is stars and stripes. This airship has a group of one pilot and five passengers. In addition, the airship is 192 feet long, 50 feet wide, 59.5 feet high. It has volume of 202,700 cubic feet and it can attain the top speed of 50mph. This airship operates at an altitude of 1,000 to 3,000 feet having maximum operating altitude of 10,000 and it rarely fly above 5,000 feet that is one of the reasons of its usage in Colorado events.

The GZ-22 was built in 1987. It was the largest and most technical advanced airship with the best fuel efficiency and performance in term of control.