Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. unveiled its newest semi-rigid airship – Wingfoot Two – at the Wingfoot Lake hangar near Akron, Ohio, on April 8.
The new blimp, named to follow in the shadow of its 2014 predecessor Wingfoot One, is the second of three semi-rigid airships Goodyear will operate.
Currently the tiremaker operates three blimps stateside. The Spirit of Innovation (GZ20) resides in Carson, Calif., Wingfoot One resides in Pompano Beach, Fla., and Wingfoot Two will reside at the Wingfoot Lake hangar until it relocates to Carson, Calif., in 2017.
Wingfoot Two features the same construction as Wingfoot One, and was designed in Europe as part of a collaboration between Goodyear and Germany’s ZLT Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik. The blimp was assembled at the Wingfoot hangar and is currently undergoing test flights near the hangar and certification operations.
Like Wingfoot One, the new airship is 246 feet long – a 52-foot longer design than Goodyear’s the Spirit of Innovation– and can travel at a top speed of 73 miles per hour, Goodyear said. Technically the Wingoot One and Wingfoot Two are semi-rigid airships, not blimps, but for the sake of tradition the Wingfoots are still Goodyear blimps.
Wingfoot Two also has three, 200 horsepower engines that are not attached to the gondola, offering a quiet flight.
The airship’s interior also features an enhanced gondola capable of carrying 10 passengers and two crewmembers, plus it has a bathroom – something the GZ20 models were missing.
With a new name, also comes new technology. The Wingfoot Two will incorporate new sign technology that is capable of playing high-definition video.
