image courtesy of NASA
Hangar One at Moffett Airfield with the J-4 airship, circa 1934
As friends and returning readers will know, I will take any chance to write about airships. If that means I have to find indirectly-related subjects so that I can spread the word about these fascinating flying-machines, I will find a way.
My boss mentioned offhandedly a while ago that he had been to an interesting site in California a few years ago. As part of a business trip, he went to a former military airbase. Amongst some discarded helicopters, a derelict McDonalds and other things lying around, stood the roughly 60 metre high, 93 metre wide and 345 metre long skeleton of an aircraft hangar. At the time, it was just the metal frame, having missed its cladding for a while.
Toxic chemicals as well as asbestos detected in the structure of the hangar meant that it was largely dismantled for safety reasons. However, as a registered monument, and a well-known landmark in the area (it's hard to miss), it couldn't be demolished. This year, restoration has begun.
image courtesy of Atlas Obscura
Hangar One's skeleton
As a history student, a lover of architecture and all things to do with airships, I was elated to hear that this structure was being restored. What's even better is that it seems that the restoration is not only carried out from a conservationist's perspective, but it is also being done in order to make Hangar One usable once more. Originally built in 1933 to house the USS Macon, which to this day holds the record together with the USS Akron as the world's biggest helium filled airship. NASA has not said what exactly the old shed will be used for, but there is hope that another large, rigid airship may once again call this hangar its home. LTA Research recently bought the old hangar in Akron, Ohio, which served more or less as a sister hangar to the one at Moffett Airfield. LTA is in the beginning stages of building their Pathfinder 3 airship in that hangar in Akron, while their Pathfinder 1 airship is under construction at Moffett Field, in Mountain View, California (which I've written about before).
It's a tremendous task to restore such a gigantic structure. The project is set to be finished in 2025, but it leaves me wondering what measurements went into this. Unfortunately the article by NASA doesn't go into much detail as to what processes were used for the technical assessments. It's almost difficult to imagine that an institution such as NASA did not use 3D scanning, LiDAR, or some other high-tech equipment for this task. With the amount of surface area that the hangar has, I imagine calculations and measurements must be terribly precise: a small inaccuracy could end up costing thousands. But for now I can only hope that once the work is complete, perhaps a more complete case study will be released.
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image courtesy of U.S. Naval Historical Center
The USS Macon, which Hangar One was built for, over New York in 1933
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image courtesy of NASA
Hangar One in 2006