Dirigibles
I’m a sucker for big machines – locomotives, ships, aircraft, and airships.
Via Insty.
But if I recall correctly, Moffett Field is in Sunnyvale, and the hanger was built for Akron and Macon. Macon went down off of Big Sur, Akron in the Atlantic, and Shenandoah over southern Ohio. The big hangars still are there, at Lakehurst NAS and NASA’s Moffett Field.
Real geek note: The Ford Motor proving grounds in Dearborn used to be the Ford Airport, and there was a dirigible mast. USS Los Angeles docked there once. IIRC, Shenandoah was on her way there when she broke up in the storm.
On a technical note – if this dirigible docked there, did they still have the materials and equipment to take an airship into a hangar? Taking Macon in was a lot of work, with the mast going down a track, and the tail fastened to a cart also on the rails. That is why Graf Zeppelin and Hindenburg docked at Lakehurst – they had ground crews and equipment to deal with large lighter-than-air-craft.
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Sunnyvale is just across the street, mind, but that's across the street...
Those hangars were freaking HUGE. They could park several P-3s inside, and it was high enough that it sometimes had its own weather patterns just inside the roof.