Photo courtesy Goodyear Corporation
Good ‘ole Flxible Clipper – intercity bus, entertainer traveling coach, mobile television studio control room, postal bus, civil defense vehicle, roadside diner … and we can’t forget mobile airship mooring platform. This classic bus really could do it all.
Photo courtesy Airships.net
Mention “Goodyear” and most folks will quickly think “tires.” But those who prefer aviation over automobiles may have a different answer. Goodyear manufactured its first helium-filled, non-rigid airship in 1925. During the war, the company produced approximately 150 blimps for coastal patrol and convoy escort duty. Post-war, they continued airship manufacturing and operations as part of their public relations and marketing efforts.
Photo courtesy Goodyear Corporation
As lighter-than-air craft, blimps need special handling equipment while moored and tethered on the ground. Goodyear found buses to be eminently suited for this task – and in 1946 placed an order with Flxible for three Clipper models modified as mobile mooring vehicles. Modifications to the bus included a reinforced chassis and roof, a set of removable outrigger wheels to enhance stability, and the mounting of the mooring mast. The three buses, two 1946 models and a 1947, were 32 feet in length. While most Clippers used the company’s 320 cubic inch Buick-sourced straight eight, these buses used a 331 cubic inch White “Super Mustang” gas straight six. Goodyear typically kept one blimp on the east and west coasts, and one at its homeport in Akron.
Photo courtesy Ashland Times-Gazette
These Clippers provided steady, reliable service for a good twenty years, with the last one being retired in 1966.
Photo courtesy Eric Friedebach
The two 1946 models were unfortunately scrapped but the ’47 was found languishing in a backyard, rescued, and treated to a partial (exterior) restoration. It now resides at the Liberty Aviation Museum in Port Clinton Ohio.
Photo courtesy Goodyear Corporation
As Goodyear expanded its number of airship operating locations, the company went back to Flxible for additional vehicles – the picture above shows a 60’s FlxLiner.
Photo courtesy Goodyear Corporation
And when Flx exited the intercity market in the late 60’s, Goodyear transitioned to MCIs, here an MC-8.
Photos courtesy Goodyear Corporation
How about today? Since 2014, the company has used a modified Mack Granite series truck, with a Mack 13 liter MP8 engine. The Granite was ordered as a three-axle model but was modified and converted to an all-wheel drive 8×8.
Fun Fact: The company’s current airships are not “blimps” in the technical sense but semi-rigid airships, designed in conjunction with Zeppelin NT of Germany and built at Goodyear’s Wingfoot Lake facility in Akron.
Add’l Posts:
1938 – 67 Flxible Clipper – Do You Know Your Clipper? by JB
Flxible Clipper – The Motor Coach Style Leader of the 1950’s by JB
Flxible VistaLiner (VL) 100, Hi-Level, and FlxLiner – The Last Ones From Loudonville by JB
1955 Flxible Visicoach – Starting Young by TJI1977
When I lived in Miami during the very early 1970s, friends and I rode in the Goodyear Blimp. I just remember flying over Miami Beach along the coast. Wonderful experience.
My grandfather was a career Goodyear employee in Akron, with tangential connections to the blimp-dirigible-zepplin-airship stuff. He had some fine stories to tell, but I have no memory of the Flxible busses.
Speaking of which: Flxible was based in Loudonville, OH–a short drive SW of Akron–so the connection seems inevitable.
Here us a bit of blimp an Houston history:
Early blimps were kept in a hangar near Goodyear’s home base in Akron, Ohio, but without precise weather predicting technology, cross-country flights were risky. So in 1969, Goodyear closed the Akron hangar and moved its new blimp headquarters to Houston.
The blimp’s twenty year Texas reign ended when weather predicting technology improved. In 1992, Goodyear moved blimp headquarters back to Ohio.
https://davewardshouston.com/goodyear-blimps-houston-history/
The Goodyear blimp was a regular visitor to The Abbotsford airshow in the ’70s and ’80s.
I vividly recall seeing it for the first time flying over my grandmother’s house in probably 1971, and later seeing it launched. In those days you could get quite close to whatever was going on at the show and I do recall a bus being involved. The blimp was an impressive sight on the ground or in the air.
Cool post, and timely as well since it is airshow weekend. The Abbotsford show isn’t anything like what it once was, but I’ll have to get back there one year for old time’s sake.
What a perfect combination.
There’s always been something about the design of the Flxible Clipper that conjoins it to the glamour age of travel, to flying boats, to streamliner deco trains, and, best of the lot, to the fantasy of the airship. And lo, here it is, the receiver for one – well, for its visual descendant, anyway.
I know, I know, blimps held only wires and field glasses, and not martinis and aluminium pianos and restaurants and beds – and perhaps, let’s face it, Nazis – but it’s still just right that a Clipper should be the tether.
I really wonder why a bus was used from the off, instead of the truck now quite-sensibly employed? Doesn’t seem a very logical choice.
“I really wonder why a bus was used from the off, instead of the truck now quite-sensibly employed? Doesn’t seem a very logical choice.”
Good question Justy – I don’t have a definitive answer but will offer a couple guesses;
1) I have seen pictures of buses being used when Goodyear first started producing airships in the mid-1920’s. Most trucks at that time used soft cloth/canvas covered cargo areas and perhaps a rigid roofed bus worked better.
2) As noted in one of the comments above, Goodyear and Flxible were located quite close to one another in Northern Ohio – and maybe it was just a matter of going with a nearby neighbor.
But you’re right, as the 40’s and 50’s rolled in, a truck would have worked as well as a bus – it looks like the mast and outrigger wheels were transferable as vehicles were replaced so maybe they just continued with buses to minimize buying new gear.
A bus also has the advantage of being able to travel at highway speeds with a large ground crew on board.
Love the Clipper and love the blimps. It’s a love fest this morning.
I never thought about how these were towed around on the ground. Thanks for a fascinating story. And it never occurred to me that Zeppelin was still around as a company, under that name. Thanks for writing and posting.
My thoughts exactly! As cool as the buses and blimps are, what caught me the most is that Zeppelin is still a company.
Somewhere, the Count is smiling.
The bus chassis for mooring is interesting, I suppose it was used for ground crew transportation as well as mooring.
I had seen a picture of the current Mack mast truck in an article about this year’s EAA Airventure which had a blimp giving rides.
Very cool, Ive never given any thought to ground handling of blimps the Clippers are cool downgrading to a Molvo Granite not so much..
There were two Goodyear airships at Oshkosh this year – N1A and N2A. A different decorative scheme was used on each one. Never imagined I would see two airships flying in formation but I did last month at the EAA. Of course they were not the highlight for me; rather the C-121 Constellation “Bataan” was the crown jewel at Boeing Plaza.