Today’s Sunday New York Times has an article written by Ken Belson about the 100 year anniversary of the Goodyear blimp. Curiously it’s titled “No Drone Can Compare With The Goodyear Blimp”.
Many years ago – in high school I think – I took a ride in a Goodyear blimp. We departed from the Oakland Airport. My friend’s father had entered a contest at a Goodyear tire store and he won a ride for two on one of their blimps. He was gracious to suggest I join his son for the ride instead of taking it for himself.
My memories are faded but I do remember a few things. Like how weird it was having a team of guys catching ropes to land and moor the thing. How it had one wheel at the rear of the cabin and it would weathervane in the wind around its mooring mast. How the interior of the cabin had these sloping sidewalls and we could look down easily out of the windows.
But what I most remember was how the cabin of the blimp swung gently side to side. It was such an unnerving movement to be floating and rolling at the same time (and not silently as the two piston engines on the side of the cabin made quite a racket!).
I’m sure I have some pictures of our ride somewhere but so many of those old pre-digital era photos are pretty much lost to history in the depths of storage boxes somewhere at home! Maybe one day I’ll find them before I’m gone and delight in a new flood of memories that they bring back!
Meanwhile it turns out there’s an Instagram feed for the blimps that’s mentioned in the New York Times story today.
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