Adventures of the Goodyear Fleet
[Illustration: Airships flying in formation]
One of the lesser romances at least of aeronautics is the story of the
Goodyear airship fleet.
There is thrill and adventure in the narrative, daring and
resourcefulness, hazards faced by men who believed in their
craft—chances which were usually won. So this chapter might well be
dedicated to Airship Captain Charles Brannigan and Balloon Pilot Walter
Morton.
Morton was an old timer, who had flown balloons with Tom Baldwin, in the
far corners of the country. Between times he worked in the Goodyear
balloon room, a practical mechanic who could always make things work,
the salt-of-the-earth workman whom every foreman swore by, the aide
every pilot wanted alongside. Steady, self-effacing, courageous, with an
instinct for the right thing to do in emergency, Morton feared but one
thing. That was lightning.
He had flown many times through lightning storms prior to the helium
era, beneath a bag filled with inflammable gas, but he didn’t like it.
He knew its swift striking power.
“I could almost see the Old Fellow standing there throwing those darts
at us,” said Morton one afternoon in 1928, as he scanned the skies
before taking off in a balloon race out of Pittsburgh. “One would flash
past and miss, and he would say ‘I’ll get you next time,’ and there
would come another. And you can’t dodge in a balloon.”
The Old Fellow scored a direct hit that afternoon. Morton was flying
with Van Orman, Gordon Bennett Cup winner. The uncertain weather of the
afternoon had resolved itself less than an hour after the take-off, and
eight balloons were being tossed as a juggler tosses weights, a thousand
feet high, 10,000 feet, caught and tossed aloft again just before they
touched the ground. Morton’s balloon was hit at 12,000 feet, caught
fire, alternatively fell like a plumb bob or parachuted in the net,
landed without too much of a shock. Van Orman, unconscious, sustained a
broken ankle. Morton had been instantly killed.
But aerologists learned things that afternoon about the force of
vertical movements of the air. The balloons gave a perfect track of what
went on. One balloon was falling so fast that sacks of ballast thrown
overboard lagged behind it, while a hundred yards away another balloon
was shooting upward at similar speed.
We still know less than we should about the movements of the air, this
new world into which the Aeronautic Age is moving. The Pittsburgh
tragedy may save many lives, avoid other tragedies.
The Brannigan story is shorter, no less dramatic. High-spirited, keen, a
captain whose ship and crew must always be shipshape, Brannigan had come
to Goodyear from the Army—where he had already distinguished himself by
making repairs in mid air to the semi-rigid Roma, ripped by a splintered
propeller—saving a comrade as an incident to the job—had quickly won his
captaincy at Goodyear, was one of its best flyers.
At Kansas City one afternoon in 1931 a Kansas twister headed for the
airport. Seeing the weather uncertain Brannigan had stopped passenger
flying, put his ship on the mast. Now he ordered his mechanic to get off
and cut the ship loose. Once aloft, with helium gas, he was not afraid
of any storm that blew. But before the ship could clear the mast, the
storm had struck, with full fury. The anchors holding the mast pulled
out of the ground and the ship, with the mast attached, was hurled into
the nearest hangar, ripping one motor off. That was Brannigan’s cue to
jump. The door had been propped open for a photographer’s camera. But he
had one motor left, the bag was undamaged, the mast had fallen clear. He
wouldn’t give up his ship as long as there was a chance to save it.
[Illustration: Reunion in Akron—The ships comprising the Goodyear
fleet, could tell stirring stories of battles with the elements
waged in many states.]
[Illustration: Some of these pilots flew airships in the first war,
others came in later from the technical schools—many now are flying
airships for the Navy.]
[Illustration: From this pocket handkerchief size airport, off the
Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago, Goodyear ships carried
thousands of passengers, from all over America.]
[Illustration: The Mayflower landed on the deck of the SS Bremen,
took off passenger P. W. Litchfield.]
[Illustration: The Enterprise lands to rescue the crew of an
ice-locked steamer in Chesapeake Bay.]
However the storm was not to be denied, and before he could get
altitude, the wind threw the ship into a nest of high-tension wires, set
it afire. Brannigan climbed out, walked to a nearby automobile,
transferred to a second car enroute to the hospital after a
collision—and died the next day from third-degree burns.
He called Furculow, his co-pilot, just before the end, told him to see
that the men in the crew were taken care of, that they were not
penalized for the loss of the ship. Furculow, now flying airships for
the Navy, is not the only man in Goodyear who will not forget Charley
Brannigan. It is on such men that the traditions of the service are
built. Any cause for which men give their lives cannot be held lightly.
The Goodyear Company had built a few airships of its own prior to the
1925 Pilgrim, when helium became available. Best known of these was the
“Pony Blimp” which operated out of Los Angeles from 1919 to 1923, flew
passengers to Catalina, worked for the movies in Arizona and Wyoming.
But the real beginning came with the Pilgrim, the larger Puritan and
still larger Defender, as the Goodyear fleet came into existence in
1928-29.
Early pilots had no specific instructions except to take the ships out
and fly them—fly them hard, find out all they could about them, see what
weaknesses and shortcomings there were and how to improve them. It was
another test fleet, repeating the history of the automobile.
The pilots were supposed not to get hurt, but they were to fly in all
kinds of weather they felt it safe to fly in. They might lose a few
ships, but were expected to be able to walk away from them, not to get
in any trouble they couldn’t get out of. They had an advantage over Army
and Navy fliers in having a free hand as to where they might go. They
were expected to make mistakes but should learn from them.
Such instructions, largely unwritten, acted as a challenge to the
pilots, a high-spirited and courageous group. Starting with a few men
who had flown airships in the World War, or helped build them in the
balloon room and the machine shop, they added some technical school
graduates in 1929, and others as needed.
Their adventures started after they left Akron. Operating from bases
built or leased over the country, they would cover every state east of
the Mississippi in a few years. They looked for hard things to do—or
unusual things which would interest the public in airships. They landed
on the roofs of buildings in Akron and in Washington—though a prudent
Department of Commerce would later rule against that; they picked up
mail from lines dropped on decks of incoming ships, and from small boats
alongside; they fished for sharks and barracuda, hunted for whales; they
picked up a bundle of newspapers from the Hearst building downtown, and
lowered them to Al Smith on the top deck of the Empire State building;
picked up another batch from The Toronto Star offices, delivered them at
the Canadian Exposition grounds; they covered boat races, football and
baseball games, the International Yacht Races, carrying press
photographers, newsreel men and radio announcers; they went to the Mardi
Gras, to the Carnival of States, the Cotton Carnival, Expositions at
Chicago, Dallas, Cleveland, San Francisco and New York, to county fairs,
plowing and corn-husking contests. They covered fires in New York,
chased outlaws and reported forest fires in the high Sierras; they made
traffic studies in New York and Washington, studies in bird life in
Florida; they picked up stranded fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico, took
Mr. Litchfield off the after deck of the SS Bremen in New York harbor;
they surveyed canal projects; patrolled the Mississippi during flood
time to rescue families from raging waters, to report to the engineers
where the levees were weakening; they carried food and supplies to a
boat ice-bound in Chesapeake Bay; they circled a thousand country school
houses, dropped greetings by parachute to hundreds of cities.
One of their spectacular feats was the rescue of an airplane crew in
Florida in 1933. Two pilots flying to Miami from Tampa for the Air Races
had made a forced landing in the Everglades. Searching airplanes located
the ship, but it was far from any highway, inaccessible by boat or on
foot, the men without food and tormented by mosquitos, and with
apparently no way of ever getting out unless a road could be built in to
them. But a blimp found it easy, because it alone of all craft could
stand virtually still in the air.
[Illustration: Few important cities east of the Mississippi have
missed seeing a Goodyear blimp by now, not to speak of those in the
Southwest, the Pacific coast. Trips have been made also to Cuba,
Canada and Mexico. More than 400,000 passengers have been carried,
without even the scratch of a finger.]
SUMMARY
TOTALS UP TO JANUARY 1, 1942
FLIGHTS 151,810
HOURS 92,966
PASSENGERS 405,526
MILES 4,183,470
FLIGHTS BETWEEN:
AKRON - FLORIDA 49
” - DALLAS 6
” - CHICAGO 12
” - TORONTO 14
” - LAKEHURST 18
” - WASHINGTON 57
” - NEW YORK 42
Pilot Wilson flew to the spot, cut his motors, drifted down to 50 feet,
directed the refugees to catch the trail ropes, then as the airship
settled took them aboard, dropped sand bags to lighten ship, flew
home—came back later with salvage parties to recover motors and other
parts.
All these exploits were incidental to the job of learning about airships
and airship weather—the tricks of winds and rain and storms. And they
did learn. A hangar had been built in the woods at Grosse Ile, Detroit,
with a lane of trees left standing so as to extend the line of the
building—this under the assumption that the trees would protect the
airships while entering or leaving. The British, under stress of war
conditions had done this, used woods as windbreaks for landings, even
for the assembly of airships at times.
But the wind has a trick of spilling over, like a waterfall, when it
strikes an obstruction. Early pilots were expert balloonists, and might
have remembered their experience in riding over mountainous
country—observed how the wind would carry them almost into a cliff, but
just before reaching it would pick the great bag gently up, carry it
over the top, drop it on the far side, almost to the bottom of the next
valley—but not quite, pick it up and carry on—a graphic chart of the air
flow in broken terrain.
But in the first weeks of operation at Detroit, a cross-hangar wind,
spilling over the windbreak, twice pushed an airship gently but firmly
into the trees on the far side. The trees were cut down, and the study
of eddies and gusts hastened the development of a mobile mooring mast
which would hold the ship steady in turbulent areas.
The Goodyear pilots learned to fly unworried through fog. As early as
1920, Hockensmith, flying the “Pony Blimp” from Los Angeles to Catalina
Island, got lost when his compass failed in a fog so dense he could
hardly see the nose of the ship. Flying low and slowly, barely off the
water, he presently spied a dark shape ahead, came on a U. S. submarine,
with decks awash, and an officer on lookout in the conning tower. He
landed on his pontoons, taxied alongside, borrowed a compass, went on to
his destination.
The conviction that except within its hangar the ship was safest in the
air, grew out of many battles with wind and storm. Brannigan, flying the
Vigilant at Washington, was caught in a storm which broke up an
aeronautic show, wrecked several planes on the ground, sent the rest
scattering for shelter. Piling extra cans of gasoline aboard, Brannigan
cut his ship loose, headed into the wind, a wind so high that at times
he found himself pushed backward at full throttle, hovered for an hour
and a half over the capital, waiting the storm out, then flew 150 miles
down the bay to Langley field and put up for the night.
On another occasion at Winston Salem, with his ship on the mast,
Brannigan was caught in a sleet storm, found his ship bowed down and
being crushed by the weight of ice on its back. Getting extra men from
the city fire department, he braced his control surfaces with poles,
beat off the ice on the bag as high as he could reach with branches,
built oil smudge fires alongside to melt the ice, took off all possible
equipment, to lighten ship, kept his craft headed into the wind, fought
the storm successfully—and in the morning as the sun came out and the
ice melted, flew on to Florida.
Boettner, starting south in 1930 in the larger Defender attempting a
non-stop flight to Miami, ran into ice and snow in the Tennessee
mountains. An oil line froze. His mechanic climbed out on the outriggers
and made emergency repairs in flight, but not before the ship had lost
most of its oil. Reaching Knoxville airport by morning, he dropped a
note, lowered a line, hauled up additional oil, refilled the tanks, went
on to the Gadsden hangar to complete repairs.
No Goodyear blimp has ever been damaged by storms while in the air,
though a bit of resourcefulness was needed from time to time. For that
matter, inquiry does not disclose any cases of a non-rigid airship being
damaged by storm while in flight.
Two Goodyear blimps were in the path of the 1938 hurricane, which,
heading for Florida from the Caribbean, changed its course erratically
and moved up the coast, shot across New England. Lange, with the
Enterprise, was at New Brunswick, N.J., 50 miles off the direct course
of the hurricane. He put his ship on the mast, held it there during
winds which rose as high as 73 miles per hour. He put extra men on the
handling lines, doubled the number of screw stakes which held the mast,
used the bus, with its motor wide open, as further re-enforcement. The
storm raged furiously at the ship for hours but couldn’t budge it and
when the hurricane passed on, everything was intact.
Boettner, with the Puritan at Springfield, Mass., was almost directly at
the axis of the storm. He made the same gallant fight as Lange, but
against winds which roared to 100 miles per hour in gusts, uprooted
100-year-old trees, tugged at a sheet-iron hangar roof, flapping it up
and down, finally ripped it loose, sailed it like a child’s kite across
the airport and out of sight.
At the peak of the storm the steel chains attaching the mast cables to
the screw stakes failed on the windward side, thrusting the mast into
the side of the ship, cutting a hole in the fabric. Boettner pulled out
the rip panel, deflating the ship to prevent further damage and when the
storm passed rolled up the bag, loaded it and the control car aboard a
truck, shipped it into Akron where a new bag was attached. The Puritan
was back at work within a week.
No wonder Goodyear pilots came to have great faith in the staunchness of
their craft, and their ability to get out of trouble.
Fuel exhaustion didn’t bother the blimp. Fickes found that out early, at
Wingfoot Lake, when a leak developed in his tank and emptied it. Free
ballooning his ship he floated over a farm house, asked them to call the
office, waited aloft till a truck came out with additional fuel.
Boettner had a similar difficulty while returning from Canada in the
Defender. Persistent headwinds cut down his fuel and when he reached the
American shore around midnight it was a question whether he could go on
as far as Akron. Picking up U. S. Highway Five as being heavily
traveled, he swung low over an adjoining field, slowed down so that his
mechanic could drop off, flag a passing car and go into town for gas. By
the time the aide returned a number of cars had parked alongside.
Driving into the field, with headlights full on they formed a half
circle, and the drivers caught the lines, held the ship till the fuel
could be delivered, and Boettner proceeded on to Wingfoot Lake.
Mishaps there were of course, in all these years, but few were serious.
Lange snagged a lone dead tree in the fog over the Alabama mountains and
Smith side-swiped another while flying over a pass in Tennessee. The
ship settled easily to the ground in each instance, and farmers came in
with stone boats, carried the car and bag to town for repairs.
Brannigan, returning at night from Syracuse, ran short of gasoline,
directed his ground crew to land him in an open field ahead. The ship
nosed down, his aide directing the men with his flashlight. But just at
this juncture the top of the flashlight fell off into the propeller, was
whipped into the bag like a bullet, started a leak which was not
discovered till next day.
Most ships in the Goodyear fleet have been fired on by thoughtless
hunters. Once a bullet went through a ship a few inches back of the
pilot. One marksman was arrested and sent to jail in Florida. Pilot
Trotter had a curious experience in Oklahoma in 1935, while on his way
to the Dallas fair. The ship had been on the mast for three days waiting
for weather. On the fourth morning, finding the ship rather sluggish,
Trotter looked around. A glass window from the cabin gives a view of the
interior of the bag and as Trotter looked he saw light blinking from 14
bullet holes—through which gas had been pouring for three days!
The nearest hangar where repairs could be made and helium secured was at
Scott Field, near St. Louis, 400 miles away. By this time the ship had
barely enough lift for the pilot and 100 gallons of gas, not enough for
the co-pilot. So Trotter flew alone to St. Louis, landing so heavy that
the ship had almost to be carried into the hangar, made his repairs and
was back in Oklahoma the next day.
Sewell had the experience of seeing a propeller fly off while heading
down the bay from San Francisco, saw it careen wildly down, flew on to
the next airport on one motor, mounted his spare.
Always the pilots were calling for more speed, removing or streamlining
whatever sources of resistance they could, picking the time for
cross-country flights when conditions were favorable. They flew from
Akron to Washington and New York frequently at 60 miles per hour. The
Reliance did even better in a trip north in 1939.
Starting home after its winter in Florida, the ship was held up in
Jacksonville—by tire trouble of all things. The distance an airship can
make in a day is limited by the distance the bus can travel, since the
ground crew must be on hand at night to land the ship. And by now the
bus, with its radio equipment, masts and the like had reached the point
where only the special Goodyear YKL tires would sustain the 14,000
pounds of weight comfortably. There was a shortage of YKL’s when they
started and three standard tires had failed on the run up from Miami.
Neither Jacksonville nor Atlanta branch had YKL’s in that size and to
get them from Akron would entail a day’s delay.
Meanwhile the ship was tugging on the mast, with a strong south wind,
anxious to get under way. The pilots held a conference. Maybe, utilizing
the tail wind, they could make it non-stop all the way to Washington,
700 miles north and have Lange’s crew land them. If they ran short of
gas they could stop at Ft. Bragg, N. C., a convenient half-way point.
The Army had a motorized observation balloon there, and was always
willing to lend a hand to fellow airshippers. It was Sheppard’s turn to
take the controls. He sent a wire to Ft. Bragg.
“If I run short of fuel, I’ll circle the field as a signal. Could you
land my ship, lend me enough gas to get on to Washington?” The answer
came back promptly, in the affirmative, and the ship left at midnight.
Roaring across the Carolinas at mile a minute speed the Reliance sighted
Ft. Bragg before daylight, with plenty of gas left. An entire company
was lined up ready to land the ship. Sheppard flew low, cut his motors,
thanked them, flew on for Hoover Airport, arriving before noon. He
averaged 66 miles per hour over the 700 mile trip, and landed with
enough gasoline to have gone on to New York.
By utilizing helping winds, throttling his motors to cruising speed,
Sheppard had effected most economical use of his fuel supply.
Fickes used the same technique more strikingly in the delivery flight of
the larger Navy K-5 in 1941, when he flew in to Lakehurst from Wingfoot
Lake at 100 miles per hour speed, again demonstrating that greater
cruising radius than that for which a ship was designed may be effected,
whenever it is possible to pick departure times that are most favorable.
[Illustration: Ships like these, off New York City’s great harbor,
might afford warning of the approach of enemy submarines, or the
laying of mines to endanger its shipping.]
[Illustration: Operating from a base across in Jersey, the blimps
became a familiar sight around New York City during the World’s
Fair.]
[Illustration: While throughout the middle west, the long afternoon
shadows marked the arrival in one city after another of strange
visitors from the sky.]
Other improvements in construction or operating technique grew out of
the fleet’s experiences in flying in all weathers. A trip made by the
Defender in 1930 from Miami across to Havana brought home the usefulness
of the radio. The insurance underwriters insisted on a two-way radio
being installed, along with pontoons on the ship, as safety precautions.
Neither radio nor pontoons were needed during the crossing, but the
pilots sensed the desirability of being able to communicate with their
home station and their airport objective. Shortly after a short wave
frequency was granted to the ships, one of the early ones in aircraft,
and two-way sets were later installed on every ship, on the ground-crew
buses and at Akron.
This permitted the making of daily weather maps, extended the airships’
radius of action. Pilots would set out with more assurance, knowing that
they would be quickly advised of foul weather ahead, could change their
course, give appropriate instructions to the men on the ground, land
whenever it seemed desirable.
In the end the airships were all doing instrument flying, riding the
radio beams like the passenger airplanes, got their landing and take-off
instructions from the radio control towers at the airports.
The fleet proved an ideal testing vehicle for the expeditionary mast.
But progress moved carefully, a step at a time. As late as 1930 an air
dock was built alongside the company’s plant at Gadsden, Ala., for use
as an operating base in the middle south. It was thought necessary as a
half way point for ships headed for Florida. After the high mast came in
however, the Gadsden dock came to be used only for warehousing, and no
airship has been inside it in four years.
In 1932 the Volunteer started in from Los Angeles for Akron, making the
first successful trip of any non-rigid airship over the Continental
Divide. The Volunteer was due for helium purification and a new bag. No
helium facilities were available closer than Akron. Rather than deflate
the ship and send it by train, Pilot Smith decided to fly in. He laid
out a route via El Paso, San Antonio, and Scott Field, so that he could
get shelter, if necessary, at army hangars at those points. He berthed
at El Paso just after a 100-mile-an-hour storm had passed over, stayed
three days at Kelly Field, found it unnecessary to stop over night at
Scott. Even so, because of persistent head winds he had had to spend ten
nights in the open, setting up his low mast with screw stakes on the
open prairie.
Mooring out procedure had improved by the time that Sewell made the same
trip five years later, so he made only courtesy stops at the three army
camps, was on his own.
A mishap at Louisville gave impetus to the development of the high mast.
The retractible low mast mounted on top of the bus was attached to the
bag about half way between the car and nose of the ship, convenient to
get at, the system being referred to as “belly-mooring.” The low mast
was light, could be set up quickly and easily, would hold securely
against a straight pull of considerable force. However, it was not as
effective in the case of a wind shift, or gusts which rolled the ship on
its side. A higher mast, with the ship anchored at the nose, was free to
swing in all directions. Every one realized this, but it was only after
Crum’s ship was caught and twisted by a gust at Louisville, punching a
hole in the bag, that the change was made.
The high mast, built in sections, anchored by guy wires to stakes
screwed in the ground, was more bulky, took longer to set up, but would
hold the ship indefinitely once it was in place.
Thereafter both masts were carried in cross-country trips, the
convenient low mast being used for overnight stops in good weather, the
high mast for more extended operations, or when the weather looked
threatening.
The ground-crew bus was in evolution during this period. Built
originally to carry merely crew, spare parts and supplies it added a
radio room, navigation quarters, and carried the two masts. A scout car
cruises ahead to make overnight arrangements, a trailer follows, with
its own electric plant and expeditionary equipment, including a spot
light to play on the ship at night. Duties of airship personnel grew
more specialized and complex.
Members of the ground crew acted as radio technicians, meteorologists,
mechanics, riggers. They comprised a colorful group, recruited from all
parts of the country. Sailors from New Bedford, fruit growers from
Florida, farm boys from Ohio, ranchers from the San Joaquin valley, a
mechanic from a Chicago airport, a policeman from the Cleveland fair,
all dropped their work and followed the airships. The personnel list was
a history of every place an airship had operated.
The work wasn’t easy, involved long hours in the cold and rain when
storms threatened, picking up mail from their families on the fly in
cross-country operations, moving their households from north to south
and north again. But the ground-crew men stuck, most of them having ten
years’ service and more. On cross-country trips a crew of 14, including
pilots, is adequate.
The pilot personnel too formed an interesting group. Jack Boettner,
chief pilot, veteran of the group, with probably more airship hours than
any man in the world, certainly in non-rigid airships, had played
all-American football at Washington and Jefferson, been instructor at
Wingfoot Lake through the first war, was working in Goodyear’s
aeronautical sales when the fleet got under way.
As expansion started in 1927 Smith came in from the aero workshop, would
remain second in flight hours only to Boettner. Fickes from Akron
University, left the Efficiency Dept. to sign up, set up one of the
first outside bases, at New Bedford, flew the Mayflower when it picked
up Mr. Litchfield from an ocean liner, later became manager of all
airship operations. O’Neil from the workshop came on too, in that year,
became chief mechanic.
When a base was set up at Los Angeles, Lange, a New Englander who had
left Boston University to fly airships in the first war, later flying
out of Panama, joined up, was sent to California, later took charge of
the Washington base. Sewell, a Kansan with a similar record, having left
the state university to fly blimps in coastal patrol in 1918 came in,
captained a ship at New York, followed Lange at Los Angeles.
Further expansion came in 1929, when the Puritan, Mayflower, Vigilant
and Volunteer and Defender were added to the fleet. Now came Wilson,
Purdue footballer, Furculow from West Point and Mt. Union, Hobensack
from West Virginia U, Rieker and Crum from Ohio State, the last named
becoming engineer officer of the group.
Other practical men came in, from the balloon room and aero
shops—Sheppard a Virginian, who later flew all over New England, the
Middle West and Texas; Massick, Crosier and Munro; Blair, Army sergeant
from Scott Field, came to Goodyear after the semi-rigid RS-1 was
finished.
Stacy, another New Englander, left the class room at Massachusetts Tech
to sign up. Dixon, born in a lighthouse on Nantucket Island, left a
billet as junior officer on a South American liner to fly land ships
instead. Trotter, from the Naval Academy, was in engineering work in
Florida when a blimp flew over. Lueders came in via the ground crew at
Los Angeles.
Many of the Goodyear pilots were commissioned as Reserve officers in the
Navy, and Fickes, Boettner, Lange, Sewell, Wilson, Trotter and Furculow
each took a year’s active duty with the Navy at Lakehurst with rigid
ships. More than a score of trips were made by Goodyear pilots across
the ocean as student officers aboard the Graf Zeppelin and the
Hindenburg, getting post-graduate training.
The breaking up of the pilot organization began as early as 1940, when
with war clouds appearing in the East, Trotter, Rieker and Furculow
volunteered for active duty with the Navy. By the middle of 1941, Stacy,
Smith, Lueders and Dixon had followed them into uniform, were flying
Navy airships at Lakehurst.
To fill their places and also furnish material for the already expanding
airship Navy, a training class of 19 men was started in late 1940 at
Akron and Los Angeles. A six-months’ ground school preceded flight
training—which started with seven balloon flights.
The training course evolved there was one which grew naturally out of
such a situation. Airship piloting had changed from the “seat of the
pants” flying of the first war, when veteran Jack Boettner would turn
out pilots in six weeks. The ships had become more complex as
improvements were made. Helium gas was being used. Navigation by radio
and compass was quite different from the “concrete compass flying” of
1916, when pilots followed highways or railroad tracks to keep on
course. Instrument flying had come in, and blind flying was part of
every student’s training, in a closed control car, operating by
instrument only. The modern airship pilot had to know his radio beams
and the rules of Civil Aeronautics Authority, be able to ride the beam
into the airport. In these various details the Goodyear pilots,
long-seasoned, had perfected themselves through years of operation, were
competent to pass on their secrets to the youngsters coming in.
The student pilot spent his first half dozen hours trying only to keep
the ship at constant altitude, not caring where he was going. Then he
would fly a given course, follow a zigzag rail fence, or a winding road,
not worrying about his altitude. Lesson three was to combine the two,
fly at constant altitude over a set course. And after enough hours at
this, he’d try to circle a pylon, keeping a specified distance away,
while the wind pushed the ship in one direction, then another—now flying
up wind, now down, now cross-wind, now quartering, making such changes
in course to allow for wind and drift as to maintain a perfect
circle—and trying finally to achieve the supreme art of the airshipper,
which is to get the feel of the controls and the weather so that he can
anticipate drift and sharp drops and rises, move his controls a split
second ahead of time, stay on course and altitude.
Airship students got no exemption from Civil Aeronautics Authority by
reason of the fact that blimps land more slowly than bombers, took the
same physical examination, including eyesight. The training course
worked out with the government followed closely that for
heavier-than-air pilots, with such changes only as were made necessary
by the fact that in one case a static lift was utilized chiefly, and in
the other case dynamic lift. There was plenty of need for the students
by the time they finished their training.
Over the 16 years during which the fleet operations were carried on ship
sizes settled down to 123,000 cu. ft. as a compromise between the 51,000
cu. ft. Pilgrim and the 164,000 cu. ft. Defender. This size ship could
carry six passengers with pilot and aide, was easy to handle with a
small crew, had adequate cruising radius for the job at hand.
Later ships, the Enterprise, Ranger, Resolute, Reliance and Rainbow,
carried on the tradition of honoring the defenders of America’s cup in
international racing.
While an airplane can land anywhere on an open field, the airship needed
at least a minimum of terminal facilities. Many groups co-operated at
the outset. St. Petersburg, Florida built a hangar; Miami towed a
war-time Navy shed up from Key West; Col. E. H. R. Green built one on
his New Bedford estate for use in connection with radio studies being
made by Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The company built its own
at Gadsden, Los Angeles, Washington, Chicago and New York, calling them
air docks rather than hangars.
Unused Army and Navy hangars were borrowed in the early years at
Aberdeen, Md., and briefly at Cape May, N. J., Pensacola, Arcadia, Cal.
and Chatham, Mass., with Lakehurst, Langley Field, Scott Field and
Sunnyvale, Cal., handy as ports of call.
More and more, however, the fleet grew independent of ground aid, became
increasingly self-reliant through the use of its masting equipment.
The Goodyear fleet wrote a remarkable safety record in the 16 years.
Accidents to airship personnel could be counted on the fingers of one
hand, and in the case of the public, 400,000 passengers had been carried
up to 1942, for a total of 4,000,000 miles without a scratch of anyone’s
finger.