The conviction that except within its hangar the ship was safest in the air, grew out of many battles with wind and storm. Brannigan, flying the Vigilant at Washington, was caught in a storm which broke up an aeronautic show, wrecked several planes on the ground, sent the rest scattering for shelter. Piling extra cans of gasoline aboard, Brannigan cut his ship loose, headed into the wind, a wind so high that at times he found himself pushed backward at full throttle, hovered for an hour and a half over the capital, waiting the storm out, then flew 150 miles down the bay to Langley field and put up for the night.
On another occasion at Winston Salem, with his ship on the mast, Brannigan was caught in a sleet storm, found his ship bowed down and being crushed by the weight of ice on its back. Getting extra men from the city fire department, he braced his control surfaces with poles, beat off the ice on the bag as high as he could reach with branches, built oil smudge fires alongside to melt the ice, took off all possible equipment, to lighten ship, kept his craft headed into the wind, fought the storm successfully—and in the morning as the sun came out and the ice melted, flew on to Florida.
Boettner, starting south in 1930 in the larger Defender attempting a non-stop flight to Miami, ran into ice and snow in the Tennessee mountains. An oil line froze. His mechanic climbed out on the outriggers and made emergency repairs in flight, but not before the ship had lost most of its oil. Reaching Knoxville airport by morning, he dropped a note, lowered a line, hauled up additional oil, refilled the tanks, went on to the Gadsden hangar to complete repairs.
No Goodyear blimp has ever been damaged by storms while in the air, though a bit of resourcefulness was needed from time to time. For that matter, inquiry does not disclose any cases of a non-rigid airship being damaged by storm while in flight.
Two Goodyear blimps were in the path of the 1938 hurricane, which, heading for Florida from the Caribbean, changed its course erratically and moved up the coast, shot across New England. Lange, with the Enterprise, was at New Brunswick, N.J., 50 miles off the direct course of the hurricane. He put his ship on the mast, held it there during winds which rose as high as 73 miles per hour. He put extra men on the handling lines, doubled the number of screw stakes which held the mast, used the bus, with its motor wide open, as further re-enforcement. The storm raged furiously at the ship for hours but couldn’t budge it and when the hurricane passed on, everything was intact.
Boettner, with the Puritan at Springfield, Mass., was almost directly at the axis of the storm. He made the same gallant fight as Lange, but against winds which roared to 100 miles per hour in gusts, uprooted 100-year-old trees, tugged at a sheet-iron hangar roof, flapping it up and down, finally ripped it loose, sailed it like a child’s kite across the airport and out of sight.
At the peak of the storm the steel chains attaching the mast cables to the screw stakes failed on the windward side, thrusting the mast into the side of the ship, cutting a hole in the fabric. Boettner pulled out the rip panel, deflating the ship to prevent further damage and when the storm passed rolled up the bag, loaded it and the control car aboard a truck, shipped it into Akron where a new bag was attached. The Puritan was back at work within a week.
No wonder Goodyear pilots came to have great faith in the staunchness of their craft, and their ability to get out of trouble.
Fuel exhaustion didn’t bother the blimp. Fickes found that out early, at Wingfoot Lake, when a leak developed in his tank and emptied it. Free ballooning his ship he floated over a farm house, asked them to call the office, waited aloft till a truck came out with additional fuel.
Boettner had a similar difficulty while returning from Canada in the Defender. Persistent headwinds cut down his fuel and when he reached the American shore around midnight it was a question whether he could go on as far as Akron. Picking up U. S. Highway Five as being heavily traveled, he swung low over an adjoining field, slowed down so that his mechanic could drop off, flag a passing car and go into town for gas. By the time the aide returned a number of cars had parked alongside. Driving into the field, with headlights full on they formed a half circle, and the drivers caught the lines, held the ship till the fuel could be delivered, and Boettner proceeded on to Wingfoot Lake.