Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. produced airships for the U.S. Navy during World War I and formed the Goodyear-Zeppelin Corp to build rigid airships during the 1920s and 1930s.
In 1939 Goodyear Aircraft was established to manufacture heavier-than-air craft.  Goodyear produced over 4,000 Vought F4U  Corsairs during World War II under the designation FG-1.
Goodyear Aircraft was renamed Goodyear Aerospace in 1959 to focus on radar technology.  It was acquired by Loral in 1987, then by Lockheed Martin in 1996.
 

This was the scene in November 1929, as thousands of Akronites and visitors from all over met at Goodyear-Zeppelin Corp.'s new airdock to witness the ring laying ceremony that marked the start of construction of the Akron. A pamphlet said the airdock "could house the aircraft carriers Saratoga and Lexington together with the Washington Monument and the Statue of Liberty."

This hangar was completed within seven months in 1929, the largest building in the world having no interior ground supports. it is 1175 feet long, 325 feet wide, and 211 feet high.

 

Goodyear Plant Akron Ohio

 

Completed in the fall of 1911, the first airship to bear our city's name was made of Goodyear's rubberized fabric and financed by F.A. and C.W. Seiberling. It was 258 feet long and 47 feet in diameter. On July 2, 1912 the ship, piloted by Melvin Vaniman, left Atlantic City for Europe in what Vaniman hoped would be the world's first trans-Atlantic flight. Twenty-three minutes after takeoff, the "Akron" exploded and fell into the ocean, killing its crew of five.

 

Goodyear's first helium airship, Pilgrim, settles on O'Neil's roof.

 

 

The Macon, which crashed into the ocean near San Francisco less than two years after its maiden flight in 1933.