Be sure to keep an eye on the sky over the next week—the Goodyear blimp Spirit of Innovation will be visiting the Vancouver area from Saturday (July 2) to Friday (July 8).

With 13 years since the last Goodyear blimp visit to our area, it’s a rare chance to see an historic airship in flight, and an important milestone for aviation enthusiasts. After all, Spirit of Innovation—the last of Goodyear’s classic GZ-20 airships—will be retiring next year.

“It’s truly the end of an era,” says Priscilla Tasker, Goodyear’s Airship PR Specialist. “We’ve been operating GZ-20 models for about 45 years. This is the blimp that everyone recognizes, and this is the shape that people have known for decades.”

Happily, tire-maker Goodyear—which started making blimps as a sideline in 1917—isn’t getting out of the airship business, it's just updating its fleet to all-new Zeppelin NT models. Larger, with an elongated silhouette and an inner airframe (which technically classifies them as “semi-rigid airships”), the new Zeppelins, like all Goodyear blimps, get their buoyancy from lighter-than-air helium gas.

“It’s the most technologically-advanced airship in the world today,” Tasker says of the new models, which include increased cabin seating, a higher top speed, better lift capacity, and state-of-the-art fly-by-wire controls. “Goodyear teamed up with Zeppelin, who we originally worked with very early in our history, to bring this particular airship to life.”

While Goodyear is already operating the high-tech Zeppelin NT models out of its air bases in Florida and Ohio, there’s still much be said for the California-based Spirit of Innovation’s old-school charm. Although it was christened in 2006, it harkens back to another era with its retro-futuristic profile, as well as its manual flight controls and attendant cables and pulleys. Clearly, it bears the undiluted DNA of past Goodyear blimps which plied the skies over numerous Super Bowls, World Series games, Abbotsford Air Shows of the 1970s, and in the thriller movie Black Sunday.

As part of its four-week summer tour, Spirit of Innovation departed from the Los Angeles area last Friday. It has been slowly—it tops out at about 80km/h—making its way up the California coast with stops in Santa Maria and Sonoma (to film aerials for a NASCAR race), then on to Coos Bay in Oregon, and Chehalis and Everett in Washington before arriving in at Abbotsford International Airport on July 2, where it will be based until July 8.

Delving into the intricacies of blimp flight, it quickly becomes clear that it pretty much takes a village to keep Spirit of Innovation aloft.

“We travel with seven different vehicles so we have a full caravan,” Tasker explains, calling the Straight from Goodyear’s West Coast airship field in Carson, California. “We have a crew of about 20, including airframe power-plant mechanics, heavy-duty mechanics, avionics technicians, and broadcast technicians, as well as four pilots. Our Kenworth semi-truck is basically a mobile workshop, and has everything we need to maintain the airship while on the road.”

But all that personnel isn’t just for repairs and support. As it turns out, operating a blimp also requires a dedicated—and extensive—ground crew.

“It takes at least 13 people to launch and land the ship,” she adds, noting that all of the blimp’s crew have dual roles, and that technicians are also trained to work as ground crew. “We have a crew chief who leads the group during the launching and landing process, communicating with the pilot and the guys on the ground. It’s a lot of coordination for all involved.”

While here, Spirit of Innovation and its crew will help celebrate the 60th anniversary of local long-time Goodyear tire customer Fountain Tire, do fly-overs and provide customer appreciation flights, as well as flights for winners of an online contest.

Although there are no seats available to the general public, there should be plenty of chances to spot the blimp as it spends the better part of a week in the area. To catch it in action, just watch for its familiar blue and gold shape, and listen for the unmistakable drone of its twin piston engines.