After 52 years of sporting the same outfit, the Goodyear blimp has some new duds.
The helium-filled silver polyester envelope had been floating through the skies since 1940, making a conservative fashion statement with huge black letters spelling out G-O-O-D-Y-E-A-R on each side.
But then Goodyear Chairman Stan Gault decided the time had come to spruce up the blimp fleet. So for 1992, out went the silver envelope with black letters and in came . . . a silver envelope with gold letters spelling out G- O-O-D-Y-E-A-R on a blue background, plus the ad message ”(number) 1 in Tires.”
Hey, for a blimp, that`s haute couture.
To help celebrate the new colors, Goodyear held a coming-out party, so to speak, at 1,000 feet over the Du Page Airport.
A blimp is any steerable, powered balloon, with no internal support or framework, that`s kept in shape by internal gas pressure, which at Goodyear means helium. An airship with a rigid internal framework is called a zeppelin. A blimp also can be called an airship or dirigible.
At Goodyear, which has built more than 300 airships since 1917, the craft are called ”aerial ambassadors.”
Only weeks ago the kind folks from the Wisconsin Dells invited us to throw caution to the wind-in fact, those are the exact words they used-and take flight in a hot-air balloon.
Yet it had been 22 years since we first, and last, set foot in the Goodyear blimp. The time span was so long we had forgotten what it was like aboard the craft. So when the invitation was extended, we gladly obliged.
Though thoughts of our first balloon travel brought on an anxiety attack before the flight, the smooth, quiet, scenic trip in the peaceful Wisconsin skies woke us up to the fact that heaven does exist and its southernmost boundary starts about 300 feet off the ground in a wicker gondola.
If a balloon can create euphoria, one could only dream what pleasures a blimp held in store. Here was our chance to hitch a ride on a craft that has hovered gently in the air as cameras captured history in the making below. We refer, of course, to World Series coverage.
The only thing that bothered us as the flight approached was an occasional nagging feeling of deja vu.
We were still miles east of the airport on the crisp and clear Sunday morning when the blimp came into view overhead. Jets pass overhead so frequently within a two-hour ride of O`Hare International Airport that most landlubbers never pay attention to movement in the sky.
Yet it`s impossible not to sit up and take notice when a 192-foot-long, 50-foot-wide, 60-foot-high bag toting 202,000 cubic feet of helium enters your field of vision.
The blimp was heading for a landing at the airport where we were to meet it for its next journey into Du Page County space.
Though powered by two 210-horsepower, fuel-injected, air-cooled aircraft engines that turn a pair of 78-inch propellers, the blimp`s maximum speed is only 50 miles per hour, and its typical cruising speed is 30 m.p.h.
We easily beat it to the airport.
We arrived in time to watch the craft land. It was then that those thoughts of deja vu became crystal clear. It was then that we remembered the photo of the blimp that had been hung on our basement wall, a memento from the Goodyear folks after our flight from Midway Airport in 1970.
It was then that we recalled the inscription on the plaque containing a photo of the airship America taking off.
The words read: ”Fear, not God, was his copilot.”
Deja vu all over again.
Why have misgivings over a bag of air that travels only 30 m.p.h.?
As the airship Stars and Stripes started to land, we remembered why Goodyear had sent the plaque 22 years ago.
When the hot-air balloon landed in the Dells, the wicker basket touched the alfalfa in a farmer`s field, dragged a few feet and came to rest when pilot Russ Field let the hot air out of the envelope.
Blimp landings aren`t that simple.
For starters, the passenger compartment, or gondola, is on the underbelly of the bag of helium. That bag is more than 60 yards long; the gondola is 22 feet long, or slightly smaller than a station wagon.
If the tiny gondola touches the ground, the 202,000 cubic feet of helium and the 192-foot-long nylon sack holding it would bury the gondola and its occupants into the ground just like the gardener ramming a tulip bulb into the earth for fall planting. So the gondola must rest a few feet off the ground.
Then how does the 192-foot-long envelope come to rest? It doesn`t. With so much square footage of the bag exposed to the wind, it would float away unless something or someone held it in place.
So two long ropes hang along the nose of the Stars and Stripes. Those ropes are long enough and thick enough to conduct a tug of war between, say, Naperville and Itasca.
As the blimp pilot points the nose of the craft toward the ground, six men-three to each dangling rope-grab hold and pull down to bring the craft and the gondola as close as practical to the ground to allow one group of passengers to exit, the next to enter.
If you`ve ever attended a rodeo and watched the calf-roping contest, you have an idea of what those six men go through in wrestling the envelope into place.
Goodyear operates a trio of airships, the Stars and Stripes that we were about to ride, which replaced an older ship called the America; the Spirit of Akron; and the Eagle. All but the Spirit of Akron are named for winners of the America`s Cup yacht race.
Stars and Stripes is based in Pompano Beach, Fla., the Spirit of Akron in Akron, and the Eagle in Los Angeles. When not committed to televising sporting or civic events, each of the ships carries approximately 8,000 passengers annually on an invitation-only basis.
Each ship is staffed by five pilots, 16 ground crew and a public relations representative and travels about 100,000 miles a year.
Our turn arrived to board the craft, which holds the pilot and five passengers in 2-plus-2-plus-2 fashion.
Getting in the hot-air ballon was simple. Put foot in the hole in the wicker basket and jump in.
With the blimp you climb a small ladder-while the gondola and the bag are swaying in the breeze, despite the crew`s efforts to hold it in place.
When winds exceed 20 m.p.h., we were told, the blimp doesn`t take passengers because of the problems of takeoffs and landings on passengers loading and unloading.
On this day the winds were calm, though we`d swear they were around 19.75 m.p.h.
Inside, we plunked down in the front passenger`s seat next to pilot Dick Esh, an 11-year veteran of the blimp and before that a host of commercial air craft. Esh was born in Elgin and grew up in Barrington.
The five passengers boarded quickly, and Esh began spinning the wooden wheel between the two front seats. It looks like the steering wheel on an 18- wheeler, only it`s mounted upright at Esh`s side so he looks as if he`s turning the wheel on a wheelchair with his right arm. The device is appropriately called the ”elevator.”
What look like brake and accelerator pedals below his feet are controls for the rudder to help move us up or down, left or right.
He spun the wheel and tapped the pedals, and in seconds the nose lifted and we headed heavenward.
Though the jet engines roared, we gained altitude in slow motion. Pilot and passenger each have a side window. Both are removed. The rush of air and the groan of the jet engines meant conversation required raising voices several decibels.
Noting that his passenger had turned roughly the same color as the grass below, Esh mentioned that a Goodyear pilot goes through six months and 250 hours of training to earn his wings and that before venturing into blimps, he had more than 1,000 hours in the cockpit of fixed-wing aircraft.
Because the blimp has so much surface space for the wind to play with, and because the gondola is firmly attached to the bag`s belly, any time a breeze pokes at the bag, it moves up or down or sideways-and so does the gondola.
Also, Esh explained something about thermals, patches of hot air we would be passing through. Hot air lifts the bag, and the gondola with it. There are no signs in the clouds that say ”Thermal ahead.” You know you`ve reached a thermal when the bag lifts.
Esh said the brief patches of turbulence you experience in a jet plane are thermals. Traveling at 300 to 500 m.p.h. makes those thermals feel as if you`re driving over those grooved speed bumps just before reaching the toll booth.
When in a blimp traveling only 30 m.p.h., thermals last longer and are more pronounced-somewhat like the action of a bucking bronco.
As we floated through the air in the Stars and Stripes, moving east and west, north and south all at the same time, Esh became ecstatic.
”Look, there`s a fire down below in that field. Wanna see what hot air from a fire below does for your thermals?” he gushed.
”Only if you`re going to clean up our thermals when you`re done,” we replied.
After a few minutes, the body gets used to the pitch and yawl. At least we thought so until we asked the stupidest question imaginable at 1,000 feet above ground in a blimp:
”How fast are we going?”
”Watch,” Esh said, and in the flash of a tear-filled eye he spun the wheel while performing a polka on the foot pedals. The nose of the craft pointed groundward.
It`s difficult to determine just how sharp the descent was, but the carpet on the floor where we dug our tennis shoes in was crawling up over our socks. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that, if 90 degrees meant the nose was pointing straight down, our craft was at 85 degrees.
”Now, if we were in an airplane we`d be traveling at 200 m.p.h., but in the blimp we`re still only going 30 m.p.h.,” Esh said.
After 30 minutes, though it seemed like 30 months, Esh prepared to land. We headed toward the airport as thermals continued to rock the boat.
”What`s the hardest part of landing?” we asked.
”Outguessing the wind,” he replied.
As we approached, the six crew members spread out, three on each side, to grab the ropes. The gondola rocked, the men grabbed and pulled, and we were on the ladder, out the door, onto solid ground.
We vowed to kiss the turf as soon as it stopped moving.
”It`s much smoother at night; you don`t have the therms,” said Esh, who had disembarked with us as another load of passengers and a new pilot took control.
The company can keep the 30-year watch. We want a parachute.
