Up, Up and Away Birthday

One of my favorite lines from the science-fiction classic “Contact” (starring a young Jodie Foster and and even younger Matthew McConoughey) comes from one of the lesser-known characters. Foster’s Dr. Arroway discovers a communication stream from beyond Earth, while an anonymous millionaire funds the spaceship capable of traveling to the source of the signal. The donor then turns to Foster’s character with a smirk and says, “What do you say, Dr. Arroway… wanna take a ride?”  This year, the same question was posed by the (good) people at Goodyear.

Wingfoot Two is a “semi-rigid airship”

In a nod to my advancing age, the Goodyear Blimp turned 100 on Tuesday (or I should say, one of the Goodyear Blimps).  “Pilgrim”, Goodyear’s dirigible based in Akron, Ohio, took it’s first flight on June 3, 1925.  Now Goodyear can claim a hundred years of lighter-than-air travel, even if this noteworthy form of transportation never made it to the masses.

To be clear, Goodyear started with rubber, and then tires.  They manufactured tires for bicycles and carriages back in the day as well as horseshoe pads and poker chips, before Pilgrim first took to the skies.  Sure, you’ll find their products on vehicles everywhere but what comes to mind when I say “Goodyear”; tires or blimps?

The Goodyear Blimp of my childhood

I choose blimps.  I grew up just thirty minutes from Goodyear’s blimp airbase in Carson, CA.  The blimp I saw back in the ’60’s and ’70’s was named something like “Puritan” or “Reliance” or “Defender”, because Goodyear honored the sailboat winners of the America’s Cup.  Not today.  Thanks to a public naming contest the blimp down the street from my childhood neighborhood is named “Wingfoot Two”.  (I prefer the America’s Cup names instead.)

Maybe you also choose blimps because you drive on Michelins or Firestones.  More likely it’s because you’ve seen a blimp buoyant over the Super Bowl or other sporting event.  And speaking of football, if the Goodyear Blimp sets down on the field it covers 80% of the yardage.  That’s one big balloon.

“LZ 129 Hindenburg”

Goodyear’s flying machines of my childhood were literally balloons filled with helium, without any of the technology of today to make them easier to steer.  Coincident with middle-school history class, whenever I’d see the blimp I’d think of Germany’s Hindenburg, the Nazi propaganda passenger dirigible that, like the Titanic, is best known for its final flame-filled disaster, on approach to Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey in 1937.  Perhaps we should be thankful Goodyear never promoted its blimps as a form of mass transportation.

Also in my childhood, blimps offered a far more romantic image in the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, where a colorful zeppelin traveled here and there over the fictional country of Vulgaria, carrying the villainous Baron Bomburst and his crew.  (And here’s my opportunity to distinguish between terms.  A zeppelin has more of a cylindrical shape, while a blimp looks more like a sausage.  A dirigible? Just a general term for an airship.)

Speaking of sausage, it was inevitable someone would open a sub sandwich shop named after the aircraft.  The Blimpie franchise (“America’s Sub Shop”) began in the 1960s, spread to locations around the world, and enjoyed a good fifty years of success.  Today most of the helium has left their balloon.  There are only about 25 Blimpie stores left in the U.S. (compared with almost 20,000 Subways).  IMHO Blimpie’s was the better product, at least the version I remember from the 1990s.

Oh how I wish I could’ve concluded this post with another wanna take a ride?  You and I missed the boat, er, airship on that opportunity.  Goodyear held a contest at the start of 2025 and leading up to Pilgrim’s birthday, where three lucky passengers won a blimp ride.  I say “lucky”, when in fact my fear of heights takes away any personal appeal to float up, up, and away.  No worries, because now I’m thoroughly distracted by hunger pangs.  Think I’ll hunt me down a “blimp sandwich”.

Some content sourced from IMDb,  “the Internet Movie Database”, and Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

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Author: Dave

Five hundred posts would suggest I have something to say… This blog was born from a desire to elevate the English language, highlighting eloquent words from days gone by. The stories I share are snippets of life itself, and each comes with a bonus: a dusted-off word I hope you’ll go on to use more often. Read “Deutschland-ish Improvements” to learn about my backyard European wish list. Try “Slush Fun” for the throwback years of the 7-Eleven convenience store. Or drink in "Iced Coffee" to discover the plight of the rural French cafe. On the lighter side, read "Late Night Racquet Sports" for my adventures with our latest moth invasion. As Walt Whitman said, “That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.” Here then, my verse. Welcome to Life In A Word.

23 thoughts on “Up, Up and Away Birthday”

    1. I can’t recall ever catching the digital advertising on a Goodyear Blimp because I was too distracted by the aircraft itself. On the other hand, those planes flying over the beach with banners in tow; I never miss the advertisement because it’s just a boring ol’ airplane.

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  2. I remember that movie! Hadn’t thought of it in years. I didn’t realize the Goodyear blimps had official names so that’s news to me. I remember the Hindenburg disaster and I remember Blimpie Sub Shop but don’t think I ever ate one. Fun post.

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    1. Blimpie’s had a store in Colorado Springs when we lived there, and I remember how they crafted their sandwiches with care. Their process made Subway’s look like a rote assembly line.

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    1. I’ve seen the blimps over pro golf tournaments (on TV) and over the Super Bowl but I haven’t watched enough regular season NFL games lately to know whether they’re still showing up at those. Goodyear has four blimps in its fleet so they must be going somewhere! Part of the birthday celebration is planned landings in 100 U.S. cities.

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  4. We lived in Spring, Texas in 1979. Spring was the home base for a Goodyear blimp for about 20 years. It was always the highlight of my day to have one fly over our area, a massive nearly silent sky flier!

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    1. You can’t help but notice them, right? When the one was docked in nearby Carson, CA at night, it was an eerie sight sitting there (hovering just about the ground actually) with dozens of floods lighting it up.

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  5. Dave, we just had a Goodyear blimp here for the Grand Prix last Sunday and it will be here for a NASCAR race at Michigan International Speedway this weekend too. We’ve had the Grand Prix in Detroit since 1992 and they used to keep the Blimp in a hangar at Grosse Ile Airport (about 10 miles from my home) when it was here for that event. So for years I would always look for it incoming at night, enroute to that airport, all lit up in the night sky – it was a sight to see. Throughout every Grand Prix weekend, whenever I heard it rumbling above I would always look up and watch it until it was out of sight. I assume it is still kept in that hangar when visiting Detroit, but I can’t remember the last time I saw/heard it, so maybe not.

    The inaugural Grand Prix was in the streets of Detroit and it went to Belle Isle for many years and returned to the downtown Detroit racing circuit three years ago. But the first Grand Prix was so exciting as the Goodyear Blimp was cruising by so close to the office buildings that we would stand at the window and wave at it. I think they’ve come a long way with the construction, now that it’s more stable since it no longer deflates. I still don’t know if I’d take a ride in it though – I’ve seen the film from the Hindenburg tragedy too many times … “oh the humanity” … the emotion in his recitation of the tragedy unfolding before his eyes shakes you to the core.

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    1. Makes sense you’d have the Blimp at sporting events in Detroit, Linda, since Akron is a short distance as the crow flies (right over Lake Erie). Must’ve been cool to be high enough in a building to be able to look right into the cockpit. You are correct about the “semi-rigid” aspect of the new blimps – structure to keep their shape even when there is no helium. Technically they are “airships” instead of blimps with that design.

      We also had a “streets” Grand Prix where I grew up, down the CA coast in nearby Long Beach. Hearing the roar of those cars as they flew by our grandstand seats is a childhood memory I’ll never forget.

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      1. They must be overnighting it in Akron, Ohio now Dave – that makes sense as there was no mistaking the noise as the Blimp went overhead. The cars racing through the streets was just unbelievably fun. They closed off most of the streets off a week before so there was lots of grumbling about that as it is in the heart of the downtown business district, the courts, etc. and I remember most offices had to close back in the early 90s as the noise from the Friday time trials was deafening. One of the race car drivers last week said Detroit was one of the most challenging courses on the race circuits as the drivers worry about things like sewer covers being too high and causing havoc with tires.

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  6. I’ve never seen a blimp here, but I googled and apparently our government has signed a deal with a company to use them to deliver cargo to northern communities. I’m assuming you don’t need an airstrip, or perhaps a small one? I think they were calling them airships.

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    1. Can’t say for sure but I’m guessing blimps don’t need much in the way of a landing pad, since they don’t technically “land”. They just need to be anchored so they don’t get away! Interesting to read about cargo delivery. That’s a more practical application than advertising.

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    1. Roma’s Trevi Fountain beckons from my office shelf… though I think I owe Notre-Dame de Paris its light fixtures first or I might not ever do it! Adding lights to a completed model – not exactly an exciting blog topic 🙂

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    1. “Contact” was one of those rare sci-fi movies that was an intelligent take from start to finish. I felt the same way about “Arrival”.

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    1. The blimps are clearly part of the signature of major sporting events in America. We had one buzzing around down here in April for The Masters.

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  10. Loved seeing the South Florida-based Goodyear Blimp every now and then when we lived in Palm Beach County. It hovered each year over the Honda Golf Classic (at PGA National in Palm Beach Gardens) one week each spring. For ten years I passed by quite close to that course on my way home from school. Such fun!

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    1. It’s a beautiful area of Florida, Nancy. My wife’s sisters lived in Boca Raton and Coral Springs (and her parents in the Keys) so we would get down that way at least once a year back when we were raising our family. I could never handle the heat/humidity well, so it’s ironic I now live in the South!

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