Look, it’s the Goodyear Blimp: Famed airship cruising over Las Vegas this week — PHOTOS
Look, it’s the Goodyear Blimp. No, really, the famed airship is flying around the Las Vegas Valley this week, providing passenger rides and aerial shots for the multiple WWE events taking place in the city, headlined by WrestleMania.
The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company has been operating its famous blimps for 100 years and has flown in Las Vegas before for CES. But this week marks the first time the airship will be used in coverage of events held at Allegiant Stadium and T-Mobile Arena, according to blimp pilot Joe Erbs.
“They’ll use us a lot for what we call beauty shots,” Erbs said Wednesday during a flight with the Las Vegas Review-Journal near the Strip. “Nice, gorgeous shots of the Strip, the mountains and everything else. Cutting in-and-out of commercials, it will be a nice vantage point for the viewers.”
Goodyear’s fleet
Goodyear has three blimps and operates out of three areas in the U.S.: Carson, California, Pompano Beach, Florida, and Akron, Ohio. Each blimp in the fleet is 246 feet long, features around 300,000 cubic feet of volume and is powered by three 200-horsepower engines. Goodyear also has a blimp based in Germany for use in events overseas.
Each blimp flies from one of the three U.S. operation centers to its event location, as the airships take about a-year-and-a-half to build and cannot be broken down to transport. The max speed is about 75 mph and the blimps fly in about 300-mile increments per day while moving from location to location, Erbs said.
Christened in 2018, Wingfoot Three is the youngest blimp in Goodyear’s fleet and has already been to over 20 states and covered major events such as the College Football Playoff and the PGA Championship.
Blimp operations
When not in use the blimps are anchored to the ground via truck, but once flights begin for the day the goal is to have the blimp on the ground for the least amount of time possible while loading and unloading passengers.
“We can’t just do it with us, there’s a big ground crew involved with this thing,” Erbs said.
The uncommon aircraft handles somewhere between an airplane, a helicopter and a boat on the water.
“Sometimes it does all of those things in a 10-second period,” Erbs said. “So, a very unique aircraft to fly in. You can feel here, we’re just rocking around like a boat on the water. You don’t get that from anything other than a boat on the water and you don’t feel that on an airplane.”
100th anniversary
Since it is the 100th anniversary of the Goodyear Blimp, the fleet of airships are slated to cover a multitude of event this year in North America, including WrestleMania, the Kentucky Derby, the Formula One Miami Grand Prix, Coachella, multiple PGA Tour events and the Indianapolis 500.
“We’re covering all of the Southwest and Southeast, the East Coast and even going to Canada and the Midwest,” Erbs said. “There’s a lot of stuff this year.”
Outside of providing aerial shots for broadcast sporting events, Goodyear likes to incorporate passenger rides in most areas they fly. From customers associated with tire dealerships, media and events and their sponsors, allowing people to join the elite flight club is the pilots’ favorite part of their job.
“Passenger rides are our favorite thing,” Erbs said. “There’s not a single person who has got on a blimp and said, ‘Ah god, I got to get on a blimp.’ They’re all excited and we feed off of that.”
Contact Mick Akers at makers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2920. Follow @mickakers on X.