LTA Tustin

[pmanton]

I just read that the huge blimp hangar at the old Lighter than Air station at Tustin Calif burned.

I was a Marine for the first 9 years of my service and served at El Toro just a few miles away. That hangar was huge. I had to change an antenna on the roof and it was a LONG climb. I remember stairs inside up to the roof.

Sad to see it gone. I wonder what it's condition was like after all those years.

 

[The Last Standing Knight]

And I thought the military had done away with all the LTA stuff decades ago.

I don't think even Lakehurst has its stuff anymore.

 

[Alk8944]

The fire began just yesterday morning, November 5. Lakehurst Hangar 1 still exists. Tustin appears to have been the larger of the two!

According to information on the internet the hangar at Tustin was still being used by Goodyear for blimp maintenance. That may be out-dated because I don't believe Goodyear is still flying blimps.

 

[The Last Standing Knight]

The fire began just yesterday morning, November 5. Lakehurst Hangar 1 still exists. Tustin appears to have been the larger of the two!

According to information on the internet the hangar at Tustin was still being used by Goodyear for blimp maintenance. That may be out-dated because I don't believe Goodyear is still flying blimps.

Yep, they're still flying them. Now they are made by Zeppelin NT in Germany. Far larger than Goodyear's former fleet.

A bunch of others companies and groups are flying them, too....MetLife, Dick's Sporting Goods, a few others but they are very small one man craft without all the bells and whistles Goodyear puts on theirs.

The smaller blimps usually land in parking lots or empty field, are deflated, and loaded into trucks so they really have no hangars anymore. As far as Goodyear's operation...they're pretty big but I figure they use airport facilities for the most part.

The Goodyear blimp base in Houston used to be a navagation point for Spring, Texas (north of Houston)....long since torn down and replaced by a Lowes

 

[CalifEd]

Yup, the hangers were huge, news reports say about 17 stories high, 1000 feet long and 300ft wide. Massive wooden timber frame, as I remember some of them were about 18"x18".
Didn't like formations, or helo maintenance, there because every so often someone would get hit by a falling owl pellet or bird ****. All sorts of flying animals lived there.
After they were deactivated from the Marines, were used by the local community for many reasons.
One activity was to have soap bubble airplane competitions inside. They would close the doors and fly these rubber band powered, ultra-lite planes around, longest time airborne won.
They would guide them inside the hanger with a balloon tied to a fishing pole and line - a very strange, but fascinating, activity.
I will drive by this weekend, just to see.

 

[lihpster]

The Tillamook Air Museum here in Oregon is housed in a blimp hangar. One of 2 that were built for Naval Air Station Tillamook in 1942. The blimps were meant for anti-submarine warfare and after the end of WWII, the base was shut down. One of the hangars was destroyed in a fire in 1992.
Tillamook Air Museum - Wikipedia

 

[delcrossv]

Seems civilian LTA may be making a comeback- might need those hangars:

The world's largest aircraft breaks cover in Silicon Valley | TechCrunch

 

[The Last Standing Knight]

Seems civilian LTA may be making a comeback- might need those hangars:

The world's largest aircraft breaks cover in Silicon Valley | TechCrunch

I saw it! A magnificent beast it is. I wish her and her operators the best. A throw back to aviation's earliest days and the great Zepplin rigid framed airships of legend.

It would be great in this age of jets and rockets to see one of these behemoths take to the skies again.