Hangar One, Moffett Field - Sunnyvale, CA
Posted by: 
DougK
N 37° 24.689 W 122° 03.228
10S E 583734 N 4140941
Hangar One is one of the most visible and recognizable buildings in the South San Francisco Bay area.
Waymark Code: WM6EPF
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 05/22/2009
Views: 8
Hangar One was built to house the lighter-than-air dirigible, USS Macon. It is located on what was
Moffett Field Naval Air Station. It is one of the most visible and recognizable buildings in the South San Francisco Bay.
From the Moffet Field Museum:
Towering majestically in the northeast corner of Santa Clara Valley is Moffett Field's Hangar One. Named as a Naval Historical Monument in the early 1950s, the hangar is constructed of an amazing network of steel girders sheathed with galvanized steel. It rests firmly on a reinforced pad anchored to concrete pilings. The floor covers eight acres and could accomodate seven football fields.
"Number One", as it is popularly referred to, is 1,133 feet long and 308 feet wide. Its walls curve upward and inward forming an elongated dome 198 feet high. Unique and spectacular are the "orange peel" doors weighing 500 tons each. The doors are operated by an electrical control panel, and each door is powered by a 150 horsepower motor.
The interior of the hangar provided space for maintenance shops, inspection laboratories, and offices for squadrons based therein. An elevator allowed access to the upper reaches of the hangar. Railroad tracks ran throughout the length of the hangar. During the lighter-than-air period of dirigibles and non-rigid aircraft, the rails extended across the aprons and into the fields at each end of the hangar. This tramway facilitated the movement of an airship on the mooring mast to the hangar interior or to the flight position.
During the brief period that the USS Macon was based at Moffett Field, from October, 1933 until it was lost at sea in February 1935, Number One accomodated the giant airship and also several non-rigid LTA craft simultaneously. The Macon itself was a cozy fit. Its stabilizer fins cleared the sides of the hangar by only 6 to 12 feet.
Hangar One is truly one of the most unique hangars in the world.
In January 2002, NASA shut down the hangar because of hazardous materials detected in the entire hangar structure. In May 2003, Hangar One was shut down permanently due to PCB contamination. Today, historic Hangar One is still threatened! The Navy wants to strip the skin and leave the hangar a skeleton. The Save Hangar One Committee would like the Navy to preserve Hangar One in a usable form, by re-skinning Hangar One with a durable, attractive teflon-covered fiberglass fabric.