Source: Akron Beacon Journal – ohio.com
By Jim Mackinnon
Attention, Helium Heads!
Weather permitting, there will be two Goodyear airships flying over the Cleveland Cavaliers’ Tuesday night playoff game.
(Maybe they should be renamed the Goodluck blimps, at least for the night, to help keep the Cavs’ championship hopes alive.)
In this June 2006 file photo, The Goodyear Spirit of Innovation (top blimp) and Spirit of Goodyear blimps fly together over downtown Akron. Hoto: Akron Beacon Journal file photo.
Goodyear is scheduling the new Wingfoot One airship and its smaller, older generation sibling, the Spirit of Innovation, for flights this week, starting with the Cavs’ do-or-die Game 6 playoff home game.
Northeast Ohio residents may see double again early Wednesday afternoon with a tandem flight of Wingfoot One and the Spirit of Innovation blimp over Goodyear’s headquarters in East Akron, probably during lunchtime hours, and surrounding areas.
Again, keep in mind the flights largely depend upon the whims of the weather gods.
The forecast as of late Monday afternoon calls for a chance of rain showers Tuesday morning, followed by partly cloudy skies. Wednesday looks to be cloudy but with low probability of rain.
The Spirit of Innovation is being kept temporarily at Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.’s airship base off Wingfoot Lake in Suffield Township. The blimp, which had been based in Florida since 2006, is scheduled to fly to California late in the summer to replace the 13-year-old Spirit of America blimp, which will be retired in August.
In this Spt. 2014 file photo, Charlotte White, who won the national contest to name the newest airship, and her husband Eugene, wave to the friends on the blimp after they took the first ride on Wingfoot One at the Goodyear Airship base in Suffield Township.
Photo: Mike Cardew/Akron Beacon Journal file.Wingfoot One, Goodyear’s new larger, faster, state-of-the-art airship, will then fly to its new permanent base in Florida.
Goodyear is building a second semi-rigid airship, identical to Wingfoot One, at its Portage County airship base.
Source: Akron Beacon Journal – ohio.com