Let's go for a ride in ......

                                                                      ..... the Goodyear Blimp!!

From Popular Mechanics: http://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/a9249/goodyear-zeppelin-to-replace-the-blimp-15720502/


Goodyear Zeppelin to Replace the Blimp
The most famous spectator of all major sporting events, the Goodyear Blimp, gets a $21 million replacement.
By Darren Orf
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In an old aircraft hangar in Suffield, Ohio , a crew of eight to 10 mechanics and manufacturers is working to assemble Goodyear's next generation of airships. Its carbon fiber and aluminum skeleton pokes out from under its gray envelope, which is completely deflated and awaiting many months of construction and testing. But by this time next year, an American icon will become noticeably more German.
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The result of a joint operation between Goodyear and ZLT Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik, three new zeppelins, called Goodyear Blimp NTs ("new technology"), will slowly replace the company's current model blimp, the GZ20-A. Crews are now working side by side to construct the first of three Goodyear Blimp NTs. The companies announced the project in May 2011, almost 75 years after the dissolution of the Goodyear-Zeppelin Corporation. It's also why many of the current mechanics and riggers refer to this partnership as Project Full Circle.

The differences between this new fleet of zeppelins and its blimp predecessors include their size, structure, and interior mechanics. Michael Dougherty is the assistant chief pilot and one of three pilots who have trained for several months in Germany with the Zeppelin crew. His mission is to learn the ins and outs of these helium-filled behemoths and to become a trainer for current and future Goodyear pilots. "Being involved in the new airships, seeing the new technology, learning it to the point where we're going to teach it … has been a really fulfilling experience," Dougherty says.

He also mentions the challenges: First, there's the size difference, with the new Zeppelins stretching 242 feet long, a 54-foot increase from the previous models. The gondola has doubled in size, and is now capable of holding up to 14 passengers. Also the cockpit, from the perspective of a long-time blimp pilot, is almost unrecognizable.

"The current GZ20A model originally started flying for Goodyear in 1968 … [and] a lot of that technology is still 1920s and '30s technology with minor updates," Dougherty says. "The new airships are built like a modern commuter aircraft." It's like comparing a 787 to a simple twin-engine plane, something you'd see in flight school. Dougherty also says the new airships will be all side-stick, fly-by-wire controls.

Three nose-to-tail beams known as longerons form the Zeppelin's triangular framework. Unlike a blimp, which relies on internal air pressure for its shape, a semirigid structure allows the two vectoring engines to be hoisted on the envelope instead of the gondola, and the aft engine gives the aircraft greater control. In operation, the Zeppelin will land and take off like a helicopter but fly like a commuter aircraft.

The first Zeppelin is half assembled, and the team is currently installing the envelope around the semirigid framework. After that comes the rigging and internal wiring. If everything goes according to plan, flight testing will being early next year, with the Zeppelin being fully operational by the summer. After that, Goodyear and Zeppelin still have two more airships to make, which will roll out every other year until the last one is completed in 2018. These new Zeppelins will be stationed at the blimps' current locations in Pompano Beach near Fort Lauderdale, Fla., south Los Angeles near Long Beach, Calif., and Goodyear's headquarters in Akron, Ohio.