LOS ANGELES — The 33-acre grassy airfield in Carson, Calif., doesn’t appear much bigger than a postage stamp when pilot Jon Conrad begins steering the 12,840-pound Goodyear blimp in for a landing.
The tight squeeze will get a little tighter in the coming years with this month’s announcement that Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. will once again replace its helium-filled fleet of three silver, blue and gold blimps with bigger, faster ones. The Akron, Ohio, company said it would work with German manufacturer ZLT Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik to build three airships costing about $21 million each. Beginning in 2014, Goodyear will begin to swap out the three blimps, now based in Akron; Pompano Beach, Fla.; and Carson.
At 246 feet, the replacements are 54 feet longer and can hit a top speed of 73 mph — compared with the current airships’ 54 mph. They will have three propeller engines attached above the gondola, unlike the two noisy engines that currently flank the rear of the gondola. Because they will have rigid skeletons, in this case made of aluminum and carbon fiber, they will technically be zeppelins and not blimps. Los Angeles Times
