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 s ...

Akron, Ohio Akron () is a city in Summit County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Ohio, fifth-most populous city in Ohio, with a population of 190,469 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The Akron metr ...

. 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 long, wide, and 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 in diameter and 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 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 (meteorology), precipitation, dew, or fog t ...

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 vapor ...

. 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, dirigible balloon or dirigible is a type of aerostat (lighter-than-air) aircraft that can navigate through the air flying powered aircraft, under its own power. Aerostats use buoyancy from a lifting gas that is less dense than the ...

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, United States of America. He was born in Prague, Bohemia (now ...

, 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 number ...

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

Dresden Dresden (; ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; , ) is the capital city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony and its second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, 12th most p ...

, 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 (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

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 designat ...

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 Stat ...

by the

American Society of Civil Engineers The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) is a tax-exempt professional body founded in 1852 to represent members of the civil engineering profession worldwide. Headquartered in Reston, Virginia, it is the oldest national engineering soci ...

The airdock 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 organization, nonprofit fundraising affiliates. Prior to 2015, United Way was the largest nonprofit organization in the United States by donations from the public. Individual Un ...

of Summit County, where more than 350,000 members of the public visited.

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...

spoke there during his 1992 election campaign. In 1987, the

Loral Corporation Loral Corporation was a defense contractor founded in 1948 in New York by William Lorenz and Leon Alpert as Loral Electronics Corporation. The company's name was taken from the first syllables of each founder's surname. History 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 and politician who was a member of the Goldsmith family. His controversial business and finance career led to ongoing clashes with British media, fr ...

greenmail Greenmail or greenmailing is a financial maneuver where investors buy enough shares in a target company to threaten a hostile takeover, prompting the target company to buy back the shares at a premium to prevent the takeover. Corporate raids invo ...

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 Arms industry, defense and aerospace manufacturer with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta on March 15, 1995. It is headquartered in North ...

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

University of Akron The University of Akron is a public university, public research university in Akron, Ohio, United States. It is part of the University System of Ohio. As a STEM fields, STEM-focused institution, it focuses on industries such as polymers, advance ...

, 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 U.S. Route 224 (US 224) is a spur of U.S. Route 24, US 24 that runs through the states of Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania. It currently runs for from U.S. Route 24 in Indiana, US 24 in Huntington, Indiana, east to U.S. Route 422 ...

southeast 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 Airship hangars 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