The Goodyear Airdock is a construction and storage

airship hangar Airship hangars (also known as airship sheds) are large specialized buildings that are used for sheltering airships during construction, maintenance and storage. Rigid airships always needed to be based in airship hangars because weathering was a ...

Akron, Ohio Akron () is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Summit County. It is located on the western edge of the Glaciated Allegheny Plateau, about south of downtown Cleveland. As of the 2020 Census, the city ...

. At its completion in 1929, it was the largest building in the world without interior supports.

Description

The building has a unique shape which has been described as "half a silkworm's cocoon, cut in half the long way." It is 1,175 feet (358.14 m) long, 325 feet (99.06 m) wide, and 211 feet (64.31 m) high, supported by 13 steel arches. There is 364,000 square feet (34 000 m²) of unobstructed floor space, or an area larger than 8 football fields side-by-side. The airdock has a volume of 55 million cubic feet (or about 1.5 million cubic meters). A control tower and radio aerial sit at its northeast end. At each end of the building are two huge semi-spherical doors that each weigh 600 tons (544 000 kg). At the top, the doors are fastened by hollow forged pins 17 inches (43 cm) in diameter and six feet (1.83 m) long. The doors roll on 40 wheels along specially-designed curved railroad tracks, each powered by an individual power plant that can open the doors in about 5 minutes. The airdock is so large that temperature changes within the structure can be very different from that on the outside of the structure. To accommodate these fluctuations, which could cause structural damage, a row of 12 windows 100 feet (30.48 m) off the ground was installed. Furthermore, the entire structure is mounted on rollers to compensate for expansion or contraction resulting from temperature changes. When the

humidity Humidity is the concentration of water vapor present in the air. Water vapor, the gaseous state of water, is generally invisible to the human eye. Humidity indicates the likelihood for precipitation, dew, or fog to be present. Humidity dep ...

is high in the Airdock, a sudden change in temperature causes

condensation Condensation is the change of the state of matter from the gas phase into the liquid phase, and is the reverse of vaporization. The word most often refers to the water cycle. It can also be defined as the change in the state of water vapo ...

. This condensation falls in a mist, creating the illusion of rain, according to the designer.

History

In 1929, Goodyear Zeppelin Corporation, later

Goodyear Aerospace Goodyear Aerospace Corporation (GAC) was the aerospace and defense subsidiary of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. The company was originally operated as a division within Goodyear as the Goodyear Zeppelin Corporation, part of a joint project ...

, sought a structure in which "lighter-than-air" ships (later known as

airship An airship or dirigible balloon is a type of aerostat or lighter-than-air aircraft that can navigate through the air under its own power. Aerostats gain their lift from a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding air. In early ...

s, dirigibles, and blimps) could be constructed. The company commissioned

Karl Arnstein Karl Arnstein (March 24, 1887, Prague – December 12, 1974, Bryan, Ohio) was one of the most important 20th century airship engineers and designers in Germany and the United States of America. He was born in Prague, Bohemia (now the Czech Repu ...

, whose design was inspired by the

blueprints A blueprint is a reproduction of a technical drawing or engineering drawing using a contact print process on light-sensitive sheets. Introduced by Sir John Herschel in 1842, the process allowed rapid and accurate production of an unlimited numb ...

of the first aerodynamic-shaped airship hangar, built in 1913 in

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label= Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth ...

, Germany. Construction took place from April 20 to November 25, 1929, at a cost of $2.2 million (equivalent to $ million in ). The first two airships to be constructed and launched at the airdock were , in 1931, and its sister ship, . When

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

broke out, enclosed production areas were desperately needed, and the airdock was used for building airships. The last airship built in the airdock was the U.S. Navy's

ZPG-3W The N-Class, or as popularly known, the "Nan ship", was a line of non-rigid airships built by the Goodyear Aircraft Company of Akron, Ohio for the US Navy. This line of airships was developed through many versions and assigned various designa ...

in 1960. The building later housed the photographic division of the Goodyear Aerospace Corporation. In 1980, the Goodyear Airdock was designated a

Historic Civil Engineering Landmark __NOTOC__ The following is a list of Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks as designated by the American Society of Civil Engineers since it began the program in 1964. The designation is granted to projects, structures, and sites in the United State ...

by the

American Society of Civil Engineers American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...

The airdock has more recently served as the site of the 1986 kickoff rally for the

United Way United Way is an international network of over 1,800 local nonprofit fundraising affiliates. United Way was the largest nonprofit organization in the United States by donations from the public, prior to 2016. United Way organizations raise funds ...

of Summit County, where 200,000 members of the public visited.

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and again ...

spoke there during his 1992 election campaign, bringing some 30,000 visitors to the site. In 1987, the Loral Corporation purchased Goodyear Aerospace and the Goodyear Airdock as a result of

James Goldsmith Sir James Michael Goldsmith (26 February 1933 – 18 July 1997) was a French-British financier, tycoon''Billionaire: The Life and Times of Sir James Goldsmith'' by Ivan Fallon and politician who was a member of the Goldsmith family. His cont ...

greenmail Greenmail or greenmailing is the action of purchasing enough shares in a firm to challenge a firm's leadership with the threat of a hostile takeover to force the target company to buy the purchased shares back at a premium in order to prevent the ...

ing of Goodyear. The Loral Corporation (and its holdings, including the Goodyear Airdock) was purchased by

Lockheed Martin The Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American aerospace, arms, defense, information security, and technology corporation with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It ...

in 1996. California company LTA Research and Exploration, together with the

University of Akron The University of Akron is a public research university in Akron, Ohio. It is part of the University System of Ohio. As a STEM-focused institution, it focuses on industries such as polymers, advanced materials, and engineering. It is classifie ...

, plans to use the airdock to develop electric-powered airships. The airdock is not open to the public, but it can be seen by those traveling on U.S. Route 224 east of downtown Akron.

References

External links

*
National Park Service history of the Goodyear AirdockFacts and figuresAviation: From Sand Dunes to Sonic Booms, a National Park Service ''Discover Our Shared Heritage'' Travel ItineraryOhio and Erie Canal National Heritage Corridor, a National Park Service Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary
{{National Register of Historic Places Airships of the United States Historic American Engineering Record in Ohio Industrial buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Ohio National Register of Historic Places in Summit County, Ohio Transportation in Akron, Ohio Buildings and structures in Akron, Ohio Transport infrastructure completed in 1929 Airdock Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks Aircraft hangars on the National Register of Historic Places

Description

History

See also

References

External links