In this weeks episode, David goes for a ride on the Goodyear Blimp in an attempt to learn more about this iconic piece of America, celebrating its 100th birthday this year. He is shocked to find out that it's not even a blimp! Get tickets to our live shows: - Portland on April 13: https://www.etix.com/ticket/p/80185968/flightless-bird-with-david-farrier-portland-revolution-hall - San Fransisco on April 18: https://www.ticketmaster.com/flightless-bird-live-with-david-farrier-san-francisco-california-04-18-2025/event/1C0062589BAC1D9F - Flights of Fancy Submissions: https://bit.ly/fbfancy Links: - Plugged in - Focus on the Family’s stupid reviews: https://www.pluggedin.com/movie-reviews/wolf-of-wall-street - Helium Shortage: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/helium-shortage-doctors-are-worried-running-element-threaten-mris-rcna52978 - New Blimp for travel: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/feb/24/the-flying-bum-uk-firm-airships-airlander-hav Contact us: [email protected] YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@flightlessbirdpodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is the Goodyear Blimp?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I wonder, because I invited you, but you had other recordings. But I also think, did you have other recordings? Or was that just a convenient excuse?
What are the mechanics of a blimp? Because it's not a plane. It's not a plane. But it has an engine and a propeller. There's a bit of this in the doc. Because it's not a hot air balloon. It's not just helium and you're not floating up there.
It's not a hot air balloon. One thing I did want that sort of surprised me I hadn't thought about, the Hindenburg airship was filled with hydrogen. And so have you seen footage of it? It's in the dock. You've seen footage of that thing blowing up? Yeah. So that was hydrogen. Blimps now contain helium. So that whole explosion risk doesn't exist anymore.
I mean, you don't want your blimp to catch you on fire, but it's not going to fucking explode everywhere, which was a huge relief to me. But essentially, yeah, you're floating and there's some little propellers that then very slowly put you through the air. That's basically it. But you're floating and you're just being propelled by these little propellers.
Yeah, I don't love that. Just because of the weather and stuff.
I mean, we'll get into the doc soon, but this came to be because I was basically like, what is this blimp? I know it's created in Germany, but it feels like a very American thing because it's so heavily tied into advertising. Then I saw it was a blimp's 100th year anniversary this year.
And so I thought this is the perfect cold email from like a podcast I've never heard of about like flightless birds. And yet they were just an amazing bunch of people to work with. They got back to me super, I never thought I would get on the blimp. I thought at best I would be interviewing maybe a pilot or a PR person next to the blimp. But they were cool.
They were like, no, we can have you up there next week. And this is incredible because the public can't go on the Goodyear blimp. They give away some flights. So I was blown away by this whole thing. Figuratively and literally. Oh my God. I wish that was on purpose.
take credit for it one thing i would say and i would be so curious now how you would react it was a really peaceful kind of non-scary thing because it was i thought you'd get kind of like buffeted in the wind and it would feel like a bit loopy because i don't love heights yeah but it felt very steady and it lifted off from the ground so gently that it just felt very safe have you been on a hot air balloon never
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Chapter 2: How does a blimp differ from a hot air balloon?
Yeah, and my parents lived on this mountain and you could see the whole bay. And then there'd be a blimp sometimes. I said, what's that all about?
As the Goodyear blimp came into land, I realised how weird it was. This giant mass of helium dwarfing the carriage underneath, a couple of stubby propellers off to each side, and as it landed, it all looked like it was just balancing on this one tiny wheel.
That makes absolutely no sense to me.
It's like a unicycle, basically.
It is a unicycle.
So it's those two little propellers on the side doing all the work.
Does that big part always stay like that or does that deflate?
That's what I want to find out about. The more I look at the blimp, the more I realize how little I know about the blimp. Despite blimps being a part of pop culture and literally seeing it hovering in the sky at least once a month, I know next to nothing about them. And just in time, we're approached by the pilot who looks like she stepped directly out of Top Gun.
It's actually longer than a Boeing 747.
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Chapter 3: What makes the Goodyear Blimp an American icon?
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So America has the DirecTV blimp, the Hood blimp, the MetLife blimp, and the most well-known blimp, the Goodyear blimp. I feel like the Goodyear blimp has hovered over most of America's big sporting events at one stage or another, from the first ever Super Bowl to the NBA Finals and the PGA Champs. And then suddenly, we're off into the air. And this blimp climbs kind of fast.
The ground drops out beneath us.
We use the engines for some of the lift. The helium provides 90% of it. And then once we're flying along here aerodynamically, we get some lift as well. And we take off pretty steep. We can actually pitch the ship up 30 degrees, nose up 30 degrees, nose down, and it's, a much steeper deck angle than what you're familiar with, you know, like on an airline flight.
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