Goodyear Blimp

Wingfoot One is not actually a blimp (non-rigid airship), but rather a semi-rigid airship.
Spirit of Innovation, Goodyear's last true blimp, was retired on March 14, 2017.

The Goodyear Blimp is any one of a fleet of commercial airships (or dirigibles) operated by the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, used mainly for advertising and capturing aerial views of live sporting events for television. The term blimp itself is defined as a non-rigid airship—without any internal structure, the pressure of lifting gas within the airship envelope maintains the vessel's shape.

Goodyear built hundreds of airships throughout much of the 20th century, mostly for the United States Navy. Beginning with the Pilgrim in 1925, Goodyear also built blimps for its own commercial fleet. In the 1980s, a hostile takeover bid forced Goodyear to sell its subsidiary Goodyear Aerospace, eventually ending the company’s construction of lighter-than-air craft. The last blimp built by Goodyear, Spirit of Innovation, was retired in 2017.

Beginning in 2014, Goodyear replaced its three U.S. blimps with three new semi-rigid airships; built by the Luftschiffbau Zeppelin company, each have a rigid internal frame. Although technically incorrect, Goodyear continues to use "blimp" in reference to these new semi-rigid models. Wingfoot One, the first such model in Goodyear's U.S. fleet, was christened on August 23, 2014, at the Wingfoot Lake Airship Hangar, near the company's world headquarters in Akron, Ohio.

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