Meet the new Goodyear blimp -- er, airship

A new blimp comes around only once in a while, and Goodyear slowly replacing its fleet is cause for fanfare. These new airships, as yet unnamed, will fly farther, go faster and carry more people than ever before -- and none of it would be possible without help from the Germans.

This newest airship is a collaboration between Goodyear and ZLT Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik -- yes, of that Zeppelin fame -- and the partnership has historical precedent. In 1923, the two companies merged into the aptly named Goodyear-Zeppelin Corporation, which built the USS Macon and Akron, two of the largest flying machines in the world, for the U.S. Navy, along with hundreds of other blimps and airships.

World War II put an end to all that. But decades later, the American military is considering a fleet of heavy-lift airships for cargo delivery to anywhere in the world. Goodyear is again building airships -- semi-rigid airships, in fact -- with a company that bears Count Ferdinand Adolf Heinrich August Graf von Zeppelin's name.

A team of German and American engineers began building the new airships at a Wingfoot Lake, Ohio hangar in March 2013. The new airship is a newer and much-improved version of the Zeppelin NT, which made its maiden flight in 1997. At 246 feet, it is 50 feet longer than the current blimps Spirit of Goodyear, Spirit of America and Spirit of Innovation.

The new Goodyear blimp can whisk away 12 passengers at speeds of 73 mph up to 8,500 feet -- but it will mostly travel around 40 mph at a leisurely altitude of around 1,000 feet. Instead of the two Continental boxer engines that power the current Spirit of America, the new Goodyear airship has three engines controlled by a fly-by-wire system that will allow it more precision flying and the ability to hover like a helicopter -- all the better for the sports events it broadcasts. The three Lycoming engines on the new airship provide 200 hp each -- just a tad shy of the previous blimp's Continentals, but the additional engine means nearly 600 combined hp. The semi-rigid structure, a departure from the current blimps, means that we'll have to go back and replace all mentions of the word "blimp" with the more accurate term "airship," despite Goodyear's own phrasing.

Goodyear plans to replace all three blimps with the new Zeppelin-collaborated airships by 2018. The second one will replace California's Spirit of America (and the Official Bird of Redondo Beach, Calif.,) in two years. The last one will head to Akron, Ohio. This first blimp will undergo a month of test flights in Ohio before going to Florida if rumors prove to be correct. The Spirit of Goodyear was decommissioned after the Daytona 500 this year.

You can join in to give the blimp a name, too -- a contest is open to anyone who considers "the storied history and tradition of the Goodyear Airship," and "the grace and majesty of lighter-than-air flight." Grand prize: a ride in the airship that the lucky contest winner has successfully named. No 1990s rap lyrics, no references to Firestone. Our suggestion of "Blimpy Boy" has as yet gone unheeded.

By Blake Z. Rong