Bob Collins
The Associated Press reports today that the end of an era is at hand for the Goodyear blimp.
But there’ll still be a big thing in the sky, it’s just not a blimp. It’s an “airship.”
What’s the difference?
“It’s a brand new design. It is a much larger airship. It’s a semi-rigid dirigible,” Goodyear’s Priscilla Tasker said of the new fleet of non-blimps replacing the company’s three aging U.S. airships.
In air-speak that means the new model has a fixed structure holding its big, gassy balloon in place. That’s unlike a blimp, which goes flat when the helium is removed.
“But the most impressive features are the glass cockpit that is all fly-by-wire, the most state-of-the-art avionics in airships today,” Tasker said.
I got a close-up look at the new blimp airship at Oshkosh last month, where it put on a bit of a show we don’t usually see from blimps airships.
