Fire destroys historic WWII blimp hangar in SoCal

Historic Hangar Fire

I've seen this structure many times and was inside one of them once during the Tustin Thunder Vintage Races in 1996 (there are two hangars). They are iconic structures. Massive. Anyone who has flown into John Wayne Airport and sat on the left side of the airplane would have seen both structures on final approach. Very sad end for one of them.

I was also at the Thunder Vintage races , was it really that long ago !

Sad to see one of them destroyed , it will never be rebuild so I hope they figure out a better fire prevention system for the other one .

I have not been in that one, but have been in the one in Moffett Field (Bay Area).  They of course were used to house the blimps used for coastal patrol in WWII.  The one in Moffett at least, was actually built for the US airship (ridged structure, not blimps) Macon.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Macon_(ZRS-5)   Yes, a US Zeppelin (actually 2, there was the Akron also):

There is a rather interesting story of a blimp that operated out of Moffett that crashed in Daly City (just south of SF), with no one on board....

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-1942-ghost-blimp-that-bewildered-a-california-town

Too soon?

:)

Seriously, that sucks...

Oh man this is a bummer. Those are seriously some of the most impressive structures I've ever been in.

From the looks of the footage, this is hangar #1, which is on the north end of the complex. I was there in July of 2018 for the C8 reveal which was held in hangar #2, just to the south, and, like 100 yards from a Target and a Costco.

It's difficult to overstate the enormity of the interior space. Really the only thing to compare it to is a modern domed stadium. A facility like SoFi stadium just to the north has a similar clear span of open space inside, but it was also built more than 70 years later and NOT OUT OF FREAKING WOOD. It's just amazing to think of the engineering that went into keeping those structures intact for so many decades.

To put a little perspective on how big these structures are, I live on three acres. There's a house, a shop building, and a whole-ass pond in between. Ducks fly around the yard and never even need to cross over the property lines to have perfectly enjoyable flights. You could slide my entire property into one of these things and still have room to build an entire subdivision under the roof.

Supposedly, hanger #2 is the one that gets rented for events and movies and was still the more functional of the two buildings. Even five years ago when I was there, hanger #1 was clearly in a state of more disrepair, and was heavily fenced off from any access.  So I guess in that regard I'm not surprised it was the one that burned since it was likely the least maintained and monitored.

I think it was probably inevitable that both of these structures were in their twilight. There's just too much development around them and that land had to be more valuable as condos or strip malls than as historic blimp hangers, although I guess now there's at least one more blimp that will end up parked outside.

Those are beautiful structures!  I'm glad 1 survived. 

I've been by the ones in Akron - always thought it's a big building - all the wood?

Here's a bit of perspective.

I'm at our home office this week, about 2.5 miles as the crow flies from the hangars. The fire was easily visible from our 4th floor office. :(

Think of the glory days.  

Akron, Ohio was the Rubber Capital of the world.  Tires, extrusions, seals - there's still a bunch around the Cleveland, Akron, Canton and Youngstown area but not tires like the old days.  

It was normal for the blimp to show up at the Indy 500.  Also a bunch of other races.  Can you imagine the meeting where it was suggested and approved to build these storage barns?  Money was flowing through Ohio back then.....(I've been in the rubber and hose business since 1995). 

Up here in Tillamook, OR there's also a pair of these hangars where one burned down. The surviving one is an air museum and the concrete pillars of the other one literally encircle an entire industrial park!

The Goodyear Blimp when its in SoCal is in Carson , across the 110 freeway from where Ascot raceway was and across the 405 Freeway from the Porsche Experience  and its short "test" track , 

I do not think there was ever a Blimp Hanger in Carson. 

I still don't understand why so much was invested in airships for so long.

Nobody stopped to think "Hey, this gigantic thing is really not that maneuverable, slow, takes up a lot of space and is an easy target. Maybe we should put our money and time into literally any other aircraft."

ShawnG said:

I still don't understand why so much was invested in airships for so long.

Nobody stopped to think "Hey, this gigantic thing is really not that maneuverable, slow, takes up a lot of space and is an easy target. Maybe we should put our money and time into literally any other aircraft."

I wouldn't right them off, what else had a loiter time like that during WW2? You're not sending these across the channel to attack mainland Europe but it seems they were pretty effective in an antisubmarine role. If I were in a convoy crossing the North Atlantic it sure would be comforting knowing there was an airship looking down from a birds eye view spotting any u-boats in the area.

Airships and Balloons in the World War II Period

In reply to adam525i :

It's not a balloon, it's an airship!!!   (see below)

Yes, you also have to remember ridged airships (aka zeppelins) came into interest in the WWI era and the US ridged airships where from the 30's.  The airplanes of the time where not very fast, had limited range and where rather unsafe in many circumstances.  As noted, ridiculous loiter time was a primary benefit for airships, primarily (in the US at least) used for patrol, they were also, for the time, almost the same speed (Macon for example could cruise at 60 mph)  Of course, Germany also used them as an upgrade for passenger ships (WAY faster), being faster and able to fly over the rough North Atlantic, when trans Atlantic passenger plane travel was many years away.

The downside, and what ended them, was that they were vulnerable to storms and thus the need for these very large hangers to protect them.  Blimps (non-ridged), where less capable, but still very impressive in duration, but FAR cheaper and easier to deal with and where used pretty extensively in WWII for coastal and convoy patrol.

Historical structure on land with enormous development potential?  Yeah, it's arson.  Maybe arson with a side of insurance fraud.