Goodyear bids goodbye to blimps, says hello to zeppelins | Hacker News Reader

Goodyear bids goodbye to blimps, says hello to zeppelins

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50 pointsShivetya15 comments

Riding in a Zeppelin is a lot nicer than riding in a blimp. For a while there was one you could book a tour on in the Bay Area but it has since ceased operation [1]. The noise of the engines is one part of it but better control surfaces (rigid) makes it feel more like the thing is going somewhere rather than drifting in a general direction. I was lucky that I got the chance to ride in the Airships Venture one, if you get a chance to ride one take it since the number of people who have ridden in a Zeppelin remains a relatively low number.

[1] http://www.airshipventures.com/

Rumor has it that when Sergey Brin heard there were zeppelins flying over the bay he was like "I want one. Can I buy it?" The company said no, so he bought 10% of the company instead, getting rides for himself and some of his pet teams in the process. I've never been on one, but I met someone at a Google holiday party that went up with Sergey as part of a team outing once.

More info on "blimp" vs. "zeppelin":

http://www.airships.net/dirigible

A zeppelin is a rigid airship manufactured by a particular company [...] A blimp (technically called a “pressure airship”) is a powered, steerable, lighter-than-air vehicle whose shape is maintained by the pressure of the gases within its envelope. A blimp has no rigid internal structure; if a blimp deflates, it loses its shape.

Depending on the altitude on which a blimp deflates the loss of shape will be the least of its problems.

Yes, but it shares that property with a Zeppelin, therefore it is not a defining quality of a Blimp.

Zeppelins can't really deflate because there is not pressure difference between the inside and outside of the zeppelin. If there were to be a tear in the fabric, gases would simple start mixing and the buoyancy of the aircraft would start to decrease. I suspect this would cause a rapid decent (but I'm not sure if it would be lethal)

I have fond memories of the Goodyear blimps. Saw them scroll news about the Apollo missions back in the day. Caught one on radar repeater while doing maintenance at an airport, turns out the crew was staying at the same hotel near the airport.

Living in Northeast Ohio, I'm fairly accustomed to seeing these blimps in the air all the time. Are the Goodyear Blimps still a big deal in the rest of the country? They're at every major sporting event and Ice Cube shouted them out, but I'm curious for a more modern, outsider's perspective.

Goodyear and Hood blimps occasionally lurk over Boston.

My father says his earliest memory is that of a zeppelin flying low over Long Beach in 1924 or so. I think it was the Shenandoah. Pretty spectacular.

I've seen these blimps in NYC, Boston, and Chicago to name a few places that are notably far from Akron and Miami. I've always wondered - I'd love to know if the blimps are flown from their base locations to other cities, or if they're somehow trucked in and inflated on location.

The fact that they're considering zeppelins leads me to believe that the normal procedure is to fly them to events, which seems crazy given how slow they appear to be...

They do indeed fly them. I grew up in west-central Ohio and every year about 1.5 weeks before the Indianapolis 500 we'd see the blimp fly over, headed west towards Indianapolis.

I've seen them flying over the city I live in a few times. Bloomington, IL, US - it's between Chicago and St. Louis right on the main Interstate 55. So I would say they normally fly them wherever they are going.

As far as speed goes, they can keep a constant AIR speed, they don't get caught in traffic jams or anything like that.

From the FAQ: The usual cruising speed is thirty-five miles per hour in a zero wind condition; all-out top speed is fifty-three miles per hour on the GZ20. As to cruising range: the ship can carry enough fuel to fly for twenty- four hours, although it rarely does so. When traveling cross-country the blimps fly wherever they go, and the crews try for an eight-hour day, or about 300 air miles.

Anyone else instantly thinking of that Archer episode? So many classic lines....

Think older, think humanity.

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