Back in the day, I was stationed at NAS Moffett Field in California. I went through training in VP-31, then headquartered in Hangar 1 there. Originally built to house the USS Macon, it is HUGE! 600 yards long, over 200 feet high, and until the VAB was built at Cape Canaveral, it was the largest free standing building in the world.
Today, its been leased by Google and they have skinned the building due to corrosion, asbestos, and lead paint. They have now started to reskin it (finally)!
And here’s a video from one of the local TV stations with some background and pictures from back in the day!
There is also a small museum on the base, and a couple of acft, including a P-3 that is open for tours. If you’re in the area, it’s worth going by to see it, if for no other reason than to goggle at the sheer size of it, and remember that it was built without computers. Slipsticks, printed blueprints, and visionary architects built something that is coming up on 100 years old!
I’ve been in the VAB. It’s size boggles the mind. Clouds develop inside and it will actually rain. It was built with slide rules and paper blueprints as well.
And probably they used a larger margin of error (fudge factor) when they built it. Unless somebody tears it down it will still be standing on its 200th birthday. I was told by a Boeing engineer back in the early 80s that the B 52 was the last airplane that Boeing built using sliderules instead of computers. It will also still be in use on its 100th birthday.
For 7 years, I’d drive by Moffett NAS on my daily commute. Hanger 1 was always impressive, though the sight of a C5 on final approach as I was going north on 101 was also pretty impressive. Damn, that’s a lot of landing gear…
Some of the aircraft used in wildland fires around here (S Central Oregon) are P3s. Kind of nice to see them in action again, even though the nearest submarine is over a hundred miles away. [grin]
Only seen it from the highway.Impressive!
I too spent time in VP-31, both at NAS North Island for P-2 and NAS Moffett for P-3. Flying back into Moffett the hangars made locating it easier in the smog. They had a great flying club back in the day.
Blimp hangars at MCAS Tustin: same-same. Old WWII blimp hangars.
You’ve seen them in about a dozen movies and commercials.
OT: Old NFO, I respect it if you tap out, or if you hammer my dribblings to pieces, but as the resident maritime patrol subject-matter expert, would you care to address a few words to the wild speculation that a USN P-8 may or may not have fingered the Moskva for the Ukes…?
Theoretically, and without violating any military secrecy oaths and such, of course.
Inquiring minds, and all that…
The Goodyear Airdock at Akron and Hangar 1 at Lakehurst are somewhat different but similarly impressive. Much different, but still impressive, are the VAB, the Electric Boat building at Groton, and the giant industrial fabrication building down in Goose Creek.
I think there are stadiums out there that are larger, but seldom as impressive.
I went through VP-31 twice and then on to VP 22 and VP 6. Walking around inside Hangar One and looking up gave me an appreciation for just how huge the Macon must have been. As you know the P-3 is a pretty big plane and it looked small inside that hangar. I suspect that with a good tug driver you could have fit 30 to 40 P-3s in there along with all the yellow ground support gear on the base. I miss those days, although I don’t miss Californy at all.
Mike- Hangar One had its own weather too, and yes, it did mist rain on occasion!
Ed- Excellent point!
RC- Yep! Multi-mission and then some for the P-3s!
WSF- That it is!
Flugel- Fun times… LOL
Aesop- What I’m ‘hearing’ is the drone that was off the Moskva was what actually provided targeting. There wasn’t a P-8 in the vicinity as far as I’ve been told. Turkey has been enforcing the Bosporus Straits for both military ships and aircraft.
TOS- Agreed!
Hawaiian- I know they did put ALL of VP-31’s birds in there once. I was in 4 and 50, and don’t miss California at all!
Great stories about Hangar One! Glad to see it is finally getting re-skinned.
I lived on Moffett from 75-77 as a kid. My dad was the CO of Moffett during those years. I don’t know if they ever got that many P-3’s inside Hangar One but seeing a dozen or more was common.
It was a nice Flying Club. With my father seated next to me, I took the controls of an airplane for the first time in the flying club’s Beechcraft in 1976. Good times!
The Moffett museum is a great visit. At one time, (unknown of late) they had the portraits of all the Moffett CO’s up on a wall. Every once in a great while, I’ll get a text/email from an old friend telling me that they just saw my Dad’s photo on a wall at the museum. lol
I would love to see it , but that would entail visiting California again.
Wouldn’t be prudent.
Great story! I’ve been in the one in Tustin, and it’s YUUUUGE! I can only imagine how big the one at Moffet is.
Papa- Neat story!
Ed- True… sigh
Drjim- Yes, all of them are!
When they had airshows at Moffett Field, one of the attractions was a hot air balloon ride inside one of those airship hangers. Full size balloon! Tethered near one end of the hanger, they would float to the roof and then return to the floor to load a new group.
I lived under the flight path for Moffett, and the parade of aircraft for a show was entertaining. A B-52 really did seem to be an “aluminum overcast” when it flew directly overhead, low enough to shake the house.
Ah, the giant hangar!
A very familiar landmark: I grew up in Palo Alto, then lived for 30 years in the part of Sunnyvale that, had the Soviets ever nuked the Blue Cube, my house would have been inside the crater.
Last I saw it, before escaping Silicon Valley for greener pastures, it was just a forlorn framework, like the skeleton of a giant caterpillar if caterpillars had skeletons.