Early hangars The first real airship hangar was built as Hangar "Y" at
Chalais-Meudon near Paris in 1879 where the engineers
Charles Renard and
Arthur Constantin Krebs constructed their first airship "
La France". Hangar "Y" is one of the few remaining airship hangars in Europe. The construction of the first operational
rigid airship LZ1 by Count
Ferdinand von Zeppelin started in 1899 in a floating hangar on
Lake Constance at Manzell today part of
Friedrichshafen. The floating hangar turned into the direction of the wind on its own and so it was easier to move the airship into the hangar exactly against the wind. For the same reason later rotating hangars were built at
Biesdorf (today part of
Berlin) and at the
Nordholz Airbase, to the south of Cuxhaven in
Germany. Already before the
First World War there were transportable tent constructions as hangars for smaller airships. They were quite common in the US at fairgrounds or exhibitions. The American
Melvin Vaniman constructed big tent hangars in
France particularly for the French army.
The Zeppelin programme ,
Bartolomeu de Gusmão Airport,
Santa Cruz,
Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil With the construction of
Zeppelin LZ1 the era of big rigid airships started in Germany and for this very big airship hangars were necessary. This development started at the Zeppelin plant in
Friedrichshafen before the First World War, continued through the war with dozens of hangars for construction of big
rigid airships and their operation all over Germany and the occupied territories. In the 1920s and 30s even bigger hangars for the new
Hindenburg-class airships were built at Friedrichshafen,
Frankfurt, and at
Bartolomeu de Gusmão Airport in
Santa Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the only
Zeppelin airship hangar of all those built which still exists
UK airship construction , England, 2013 There was also an airship program in the UK. This required the big construction sheds in
Barrow-in-Furness,
Inchinnan,
Barlow and
Cardington, and the rigid airship war stations at Longside,
East Fortune,
Howden,
Pulham (Norfolk) and
Kingsnorth. Today, only the two hangars of the former Royal Airship Works in
Cardington, Bedfordshire, where the
R101 was built, remain. The No.1 Cardington hangar is original, but extended; the No.2 hangar was relocated to Cardington from Pulham in 1928. In 1924, the Imperial Airship Communications scheme planned to extend mail and passenger service to British India, so an 859-foot hangar was constructed at
Karachi (now in Pakistan) in 1929. This was the intended destination of the R101.
France In France few big hangars had been built, because there was only one attempt to build a rigid airship. Nevertheless, at the end of the
First World War an
airship station for
rigid airships was built in
Cuers-Pierrefeu by adding the parts of smaller hangars to two big ones. At
Paris-Orly Airport two concrete hangars were built between 1923 and 1926. Planned by the engineer
Eugene Freyssinet, the 300 metre-long buildings were an important innovation according to the construction and aesthetic of the design. None of the big French hangars exist anymore, while a few smaller ones still are there (see Ecausseville, Calvados for a surviving example).
United States s located at
NAS Santa Ana, California s of the 80th Naval Construction Battalion at
Carlsen Field Trinidad,
B.W.I. for ZP-51 of Fleet Airship Wing 5 in 1943 In the United States the Navy began producing non-rigid airships during
World War I. The
Wingfoot Lake Airship Hangar in
Suffield, Ohio was constructed in 1917 by the
Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company for the production of non-rigid airships and training.
Hangar No 1 at
Lakehurst Naval Airship Station was built in 1921 to house the Navy's future rigid airships. Additional hangars, which housed the and , exist in
Akron, Ohio (the
Goodyear Airdock, 1929) and
Sunnyvale, California (
Hangar One, Moffett Federal Airfield, 1932). The ships were constructed in Akron. The
Akron was based in Lakehurst while the
Macon was based at Moffett Field. During
World War II, seventeen large hangars were built to house US Navy blimps. Today, five of these wooden hangars still exist:
Moffett Field (1),
Tustin, California (1),
Tillamook, Oregon (1),
Lakehurst, New Jersey (2).
Post World War hangars , built for Cargolifter Worldwide, only one big airship shed has been built since the Second World War: the one in Brand, south of Berlin, for the construction of the
Cargolifter AG airship. With a length of , a width of and a height of , it is one of the largest structures in the world without interior support structures. After the bankruptcy of Cargolifter AG it was converted into a leisure center,
Tropical Islands. For the needs of the rather small blimps quite a number of mostly simple hangars exist around the world today. ==References==