The Goodyear blimp
From ‘Pilgrim’ to ‘Wingfoot’ in 100 years
Goodyear started building airship parts as early as 1911
when it determined the material it used for tires would
make a good envelope for its nonrigid airships. 
Goodyear’s first civil airship was called Pilgrim, conceived in 1925 by Paul Weeks Litchfield, at the time superintendent and plant manager of the Akron facility and the visionary behind Goodyear’s aeronautics department. Pilgrim was a three-person airship, the gondola holding the pilot in the front, a passenger in the middle, and a mechanic in the back. Compared to the later blimps it was tiny. “Litchfield wanted to own his mini air yachts, that was his vision, and he used them to pick up his buddies from the golf course,” said Michael Dougherty, Goodyear chief pilot of airship operations. It didn’t take long for Litchfield to figure out that Pilgrim would also serve as a great advertising tool by branding it with the Goodyear name and logo.
Litchfield became president, chairman, and eventually the first CEO of Goodyear. After World War I, he cooperated with Karl Arnstein, one of the most consequential developers of German airships during the war, to build airships the size of Zeppelins. This ultimately led to the construction of the airdock at Akron-Fulton Airport (AKR), because there was no structure big enough to hold or work on these new airships. At the time in 1929, the airdock was the largest building in the world; however, today’s center of operations is the Wingfoot Lake Airship Hangar on the Wingfoot Lake Airship Base in Mogadore, Ohio.
Goodyear’s second blimp was named Puritan and was
then considered the template for Goodyear’s 
growing fleet. It was followed in 1930 by Defender, the first airship in the world equipped with a “Neon-O-Gram,” a lighted sign made of removable panels holding neon signs, each 6 feet tall and 4 feet wide. By that time, the initial envelope size of 66,000 square feet had grown to 112,000 square feet and then to 123,000 square feet with the Enterprise in 1934.
With World War II looming, the U.S. Navy took over the Wingfoot Lake facility. Goodyear increased its airship production and created a pilot training program to support the U.S. Navy in anti-submarine warfare. Because of their ability to stay aloft for 30 to 60 days depending on power setting, mission requirements, and loading configurations, blimps were considered ideal to escort convoys and perform surveillance tasks. Most of them could be serviced and refueled by the ships they were escorting. When the U.S. base at Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941, production was accelerated yet again and by 1944 Goodyear had delivered 154 blimps to the U.S. Navy, 104 of which were built at Wingfoot Lake. According to the U.S. Navy, blimps escorted 89,000 marine vessels without a single loss to enemy submarines.
In the years following World War II, Goodyear’s blimps focused on commercial operations, broadcasting and supplying camera footage for events like the Rose Parades and the Rose Bowl games in Pasadena, California, the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, and Super Bowl championship games. In addition, the airships rendered valuable public services. While Columbia was covering a World Series game at Candlestick Park in San Francisco in 1989, an earthquake shook the Bay Area, and the airship was able to immediately assist with images of the affected area to help guide first responders. In 1992, in the wake of Hurricane Andrew, Stars & Stripes broadcast emergency messages over neighborhoods without power, directing them to relief supply stations. Organizations that Goodyear blimps have supported include the American Cancer Society, the American Red Cross, and Support Our Troops.
In 2011, Goodyear decided to move away from the nonrigid blimps in favor of three semi-rigid Zeppelin NT airships, the first of which, Wingfoot One, was delivered in 2014; Wingfoot Two and Wingfoot Three followed in 2016 and 2018, respectively. Dougherty said the reason for this change was “obsolescence,” and explained that Goodyear had gone as far as it could with the nonrigid airframe and had reached a point where upgrades would not achieve the desired results and materials for some of the components were no longer available. He said the Zeppelin NTs are quieter, more stable, fly smoother, and hover, which is imperative when covering golf matches. “It was a workout to fly the blimps, you needed a gym membership. With the new ones it’s a more of a mental thing and you don’t need nearly the crew.” The gondola, or car, is bigger and can accommodate more camera equipment, delivering high-definition, gyro-stabilized views of major events, or offer space for more passengers or guests.
On a cross-country trip, a mast truck that also carries maintenance material leaves about one hour before the airship and both meet at the destination at about the same time. For longer trips, trucks are strategically positioned across the country and staffed with crew, so the airship practically never stops flying.
Wingfoot One, Two, and Three are each powered by three Lycoming IO-360 C1G6 200-horsepower engines and four swivel propellers. They’re attached far away from the cabin, so engine noise or vibrations aren’t a factor, increasing the flight comfort and passengers’ ability to converse. In comparison, “The last generation, GZ-20A airships, used two Continental IO-360-D 210-horsepower engines mounted on either side of the gondola to provide thrust, and the airships were then flown aerodynamically, similar to an airplane, where they required airspeed to stay aloft when they were in a statically heavy state.” Dougherty said.
Wingfoot One is currently based at Wingfoot Lake, Wingfoot Two is based in Pompano Beach, Florida (the only one that calls a public airport home), and Wingfoot Three is at Goodyear’s Carson, California, base.
And what happened to the previous (and last) generation of Goodyear blimps? They are largely in museums. One is at the Wingfoot Lake facility; one will be donated; one is at the Crawford Auto Aviation Museum in Cleveland, Ohio; and another is at the Planes of Fame Air Museum in Chino, California. Pilgrim’s gondola is at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia.
“Goodyear recognizes June 3, 2025, which marks 100 years since the inaugural flight of its first branded blimp Pilgrim, as the official date of the blimp’s one-hundredth anniversary,” according to its website.
And even though they’re technically Zeppelins, for marketing and branding reasons, Wingfoot One, Two, and Three are still called Goodyear blimps. “They’re just a cool tool that nobody else has,” said Dougherty. 
