If you tuned in to Game 1 of the National League Championship Series last night, you were treated to spectacular aerial views of Dodger Stadium and greater Los Angeles courtesy of one of Goodyear’s blimps. America’s most recognizable airships, the tire and rubber company’s “Aerial Ambassadors,” travel more than 100,000 miles each year to cover more than 80 sporting events. Here’s a brief history of how Goodyear’s blimps have evolved.

A blimp is simply a balloon filled with nonflammable helium and propelled by an engine. Goodyear blimps are powered by two aircraft engines. Lt. A.D. Cunningham of Great Britain’s Royal Navy Air Service is often credited with coining the term “blimp.” As the story goes, Cunningham, who commanded an air station in England during World War I, plucked the material of His Majesty’s Airship SS-12 and it made a strange sound. “Blimp,” is how Cunningham supposedly described it.

Goodyear has manufactured over 300 airships since the company was founded in 1898. In March 1917, Secretary of the Nav