Goodyear Rubber & Tire airship makes a stop at PBG

PLATTSBURGH | The Goodyear Rubber & Tire Company centennial blimp is anchored today at Plattsburgh International Airport. It is locked to a mast that is traveling along with seven vehicles on the ground as the airship makes its way on a two-week trip. Goodyear captain Jerry Hissem told The Sun that this blimp is named Wingfoot One and will continue on to Hartford, Connecticut on Saturday to provide live aerial coverage of the PGA Traveler's Open golf tournament for CBS Sports. Friday was a scheduled day off for the crew of eight and two pilots, he said. "I compare flying the airship to floating in a bubble or riding on a magic carpet," he said. "We fly at an average height 1,000 to 2,000 feet above the ground, that's where you'll see us most of the time. That's a good height for everybody to see the Goodyear name on the side of the bag. It's called an envelope, the main thing you see, and there's a gondola that hangs underneath. We are set up for eight passengers and two pilots. When we move the ship, there are two pilots on board. "We do a summer tour every year," Hissem said. "We are now on a two-week tour out of Akron, Ohio, which is the airship's home base. We were up in Canada to support two of our tire plants, at Nappanee, Ontario and at Valley Field, Quebec. We started in Akron and we went to Watertown, then to Ontario and Quebec and made our way back into the states and landed here at Plattsburgh. "It's a beautiful airport," he said. This year marks the 100th anniversary of Goodyear dirigible design manufacturing. The company has built over 300 airships in the last century. To mark the centennial, Wingfoot One's rubber fabric envelope was designed to match the first ship they built in 1925 and named Pilgrim. The Pilgrim now hangs in the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia. "We're on a scheduled day off today," Hissem said on Friday, "and we leave tomorrow morning. We fly to Hartford CT to cover the PGA golf Traveler's Championship and will do prime time coverage Saturday and Sunday. We have three folks on our crew dedicated to do the camera work, they're Goodyear associates," Hissem said. The Goodyear airship travels with a crew of 20 people altogether, though most folks are on the ground. Support equipment includes a mast truck, which is a vehicle with a post used to anchor the nose of the airship while on the ground. "You can think of the mast truck and blimp working like a flag pole and a flag," Hissem said. "We lock the nose into the mast truck and then it can swing around 360 degrees. We just hook it by the nose and it swings wherever the wind goes. It's always pointing into the wind." Friday was a scheduled day off, but winds today would hamper flight. Hissem said they won't fly with wind speeds above 25 to 30 knots. Like all aircraft, take-off has a unique a flight sequence. "We get disconnected while the engines are running; the airship is weighted to stay off the ground," Hissem said. "The airship backs up and the mast truck will back away, Once we're ready to go, the propellers rotate up like a helicopter. Then we give it thrust to get up into the air, it's a vertical take-off." Hissem said they saw one of the BETA electric vertical take-off aircraft on the airport runway and thought that was cool "We go straight up into the air, then slowly start rotating the props down to gain forward speed." The pilots navigate using GPS direct, he said. The ground caravan is usually within 50 miles of the aircraft. "We are going to be flying directly to the course in Hartford," Hissem said of Saturday's departure. "After Sunday, we go to Plymouth, Massachusetts, to our tire dealer, Sullivan Tire & Auto Service, and we will give them two days of passengers for their employees and customers. After Plymouth, we head to Allentown, PA, and then back home to Akron. "We're celebrating 100 years of airships within Goodyear this year, Hissem said. He has been with the company for 20 years. And in 28 years, he cannot recall a visit to Plattsburgh. "I don't think we've ever stopped in Plattsburgh," Hissem said. Airport Director Chris Kreig told The Sun there have been no dirigible landings at PBG in his nearly 15 years at the airport. This year is the 30th year since the U.S. Air Force decommissioned the former Plattsburgh Air Force Base. But many U.S. Air Force veterans and former pilots live locally, and they, along with many long-time residents, recall busy aircraft activity in and out of Plattsburgh. Locals here and in northern Vermont watching the skies have been thrilled to capture photographs and video of Wingfoot One floating above the region and landing for a few days' pause at PBG.

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Goodyear Rubber & Tire airship makes a stop at PBG

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