| 1783 |
Two French brothers, Jacques Etienne and Joseph Michel Montgolfier, invent the hot air balloon and send it to an altitude of 6000 feet. |
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| 1783 |
French physicist makes the first manned balloon flight. |
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| 1852 |
Henri Giffard builds the first powered airship (cigar-shaped, gas-filled bag with a propeller-powered by a steam engine). |
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| 1900 |
Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin of Germany invent the first rigid airship containing hydrogen-as-filled rubber bags (it carried five people). |
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| July 2, 1912 |
Melvin Vaniman, an airplane mechanic from Akron, Ohio, tries the first flight across the Atlantic in a new craft created by Goodyear called the "Akron." Something goes wrong at takeoff and the ship bursts into flames, crashing into the ocean. Everyone aboard is killed. |
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| 1915 |
The term "blimp" is allegedly coined by an English airman, Lieutenant A. D. Cunningham, who flicks a finger against the envelope (the ship's covering) and then mimics the sound -- "blimp." |
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| 1925 |
P. W. Litchfield flies his "air yacht." He thinks this will be applied in a much greater realm and plans to fill the skies with blimps. |
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| 1920s |
Blimps become a trendy way to advertise. |
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| 1928 |
Goodyear wins a contract to build two huge new airships for the U.S. Navy. |
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| November 1928 |
The Goodyear airdock is built, becoming the world's largest building without interior supports (22 stories high and 1200 feet long). |
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| August 1931 |
The first of the new rigid airships is named "Akron." |
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| April 1933 |
The second airship named for Akron crashes into the Atlantic (three people survive). |
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| 1935 |
The second of Goodyear's rigid airships, the USS Macon, crashed in the Pacific (two fatalities occur). |
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| May, 1937 |
The Hindenberg crashed, thus ending the dream of passenger travel by airship. |
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| After 1937 |
Airships start to use helium instead of hydrogen. Helium has less lift but is not flammable. |
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| 1941 |
The Navy calls on Goodyear to build massive blimps to watch over America's fleet and coasts as we go to war. Blimps become "aerial battleships" with a squadron of planes as part of their cargo. |
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| By 1942 |
Goodyear is churning out blimps with a production goal of one airship every two days. |
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| By 1944 |
Production is slowed as the Navy decides there are enough blimps to protect the homeland. |
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| 1958 |
Goodyear puts a TV camera in a blimp to get an aerial shot of a sporting event. Because the camera and equipment are so large and heavy, it is impossible to have anyone aboard. |
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| By 1980s |
Goodyear operates three blimps with new high-tech cameras and a microwave system that allows the TV directors to call the shots from the ground. |
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| October 1999 |
The third airship named for Akron crashes just minutes away from the hangar |
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