DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Flying a couple of hundred ft above the streets and shores of Daytona Seashore, the Goodyear Blimp attracts a crowd.
Onlookers stare and level. Drivers pull over for higher appears to be like, snapping footage, recording movies and making an attempt to line up the right selfie. For some, it’s nostalgic. For others, it’s a glimpse at a larger-than-life promoting icon.
At 100 years outdated, the blimp is an ageless star within the sky. And the 246-foot-long airship will probably be within the background of the Daytona 500 on Sunday — roughly 1,500 ft above Daytona Worldwide Speedway, truly — to have a good time its newest and biggest anniversary tour.
Although distant digicam applied sciences — drones, largely — are bettering frequently and altering the panorama of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a distinct segment. At Daytona, with the same old 40-car area racing round a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly present the scope of the occasion.
“It’s great to show the pack racing,” Fox Sports activities director Artie Kempner stated, including that he anticipated to make use of aerial pictures from the blimp about 50 instances throughout Sunday’s race.
The Goodyear Blimp has been an everyday at main sporting occasions since flying above the 1955 Rose Bowl. A number of years later, it grew to become a service car for tv protection whereas concurrently functioning as a extremely seen promoting platform. It’s been at each Daytona 500 since 1962.
Throughout that streak, blimps have undergone wholesale modifications and improved dramatically: steering know-how, security improvements, high-definition cameras, gyro-stabilized aerial views and far quieter rides because of relocated engines and propellers.
These days, using on the blimp isn’t a lot totally different from touring on a small airplane. The 12-seater comes with reclining seats, tray tables, seatbelts, a security briefing and a toilet with wonderful views. A number of home windows function the one air-con onboard. The blimp gives a clean journey even at high velocity, creeping alongside at 73 mph — nicely beneath the vehicles pushing 200 mph on the monitor.
“It’s an iconic symbol for our nation, a floating piece of Americana,” blimp pilot Jensen Kervern stated. “There’s nothing like it in the world.”
The blimp has coated greater than 2,500 occasions and brought greater than 500,000 passengers for rides, based on Goodyear. Former President Ronald Reagan is perhaps essentially the most well-known passenger, and rapper Ice Dice raised the blimp’s road cred when he included a line about it in his 1992 track titled “It Was A Good Day.”
However not simply anybody can climb aboard. Rides are invitation solely though telephones at blimp headquarters — the three U.S.-based airships are housed in California, Florida and Ohio — ring off the hook with folks inquiring about shopping for a journey.
As a part of the blimp’s 100-year anniversary celebration, nevertheless, Goodyear is giving three U.S. residents an opportunity to hitch the unique membership and win a journey. The sweepstakes will present every winner a certificates for 2 to fly on the blimp. The prize additionally contains $3,000 for journey bills to one in every of Goodyear’s airship hangars.
It will be a once-in-a-lifetime expertise, little doubt.
The blimp flies low sufficient to identify pods of dolphins or flotillas of sea turtles within the Atlantic Ocean. The view over Daytona Worldwide Speedway is equally gorgeous, with the power to see each inch of the famed monitor whereas watching (and listening to) race vehicles turning laps.
Already in 2025, the Goodyear fleet has flown over the Rose Bowl, the Orange Bowl, the Professional Bowl and Pebble Seashore. Its upcoming schedule contains the Academy Awards, Coachella and WrestleMania.
However will the blimp survive one other 100 years?
Drone imagery and determination proceed to enhance together with maneuverability, stability and flight longevity. And the place drones might be flown by one particular person, the Goodyear Blimp crew at Daytona tops 20 staffers.
However given the blimp’s longevity, adaptability and celeb, nobody ought to wager in opposition to it sticking round for generations to come back.
“Despite changes in technology and our environment, people still get so excited to see the blimp,” Kervern stated. “It’s just an iconic symbol for our nation.”