Moffett Federal Airfield ( IATA : NUQ , ICAO : KNUQ , FAA LID : NUQ ), also known as Moffett Field , is a joint civil-military airport located in an unincorporated part of Santa Clara County , California , United States, between northern Mountain View and northern Sunnyvale . On November 10, 2014, NASA announced that it would be leasing 1,000 acres (400 ha) of the airfield property to Google for 60 years.
169-653: The airport is near the south end of San Francisco Bay , northwest of San Jose . Formerly a US Navy facility, the former naval air station is now owned and operated by the NASA Ames Research Center . Tenant military activities include the 129th Rescue Wing of the California Air National Guard , operating the HC-130J Combat King II and HH-60G Pave Hawk aircraft, as well as the adjacent Headquarters for
338-614: A National Historic District listed on the National Register of Historic Places . Hangar One is one of the world's largest freestanding structures, covering 8 acres (32,000 m). The hangar was constructed in 1931. Hangar One is a Naval Historical Monument, Historic American Engineering Record CA-335, State of California Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks. In May 2008, The National Trust for Historic Preservation listed Hangar One on their list of America's Most Endangered Places . Hangar Two and Hangar Three are some of
507-617: A Ramsar Wetland of International Importance on February 2, 2013, and the Port of Oakland on the bay is one of the busiest cargo ports on the west coast. The bay covers somewhere between 400 and 1,600 square miles (1,000–4,000 km ), depending on which sub-bays (such as San Pablo Bay), estuaries, wetlands , and so on are included in the measurement. The main part of the bay measures three to twelve miles (5–19 km) wide east-to-west and somewhere between 48 miles (77 km) and 60 miles (97 km) north-to-south. San Francisco Bay
676-411: A $ 1.16 billion, 60-year lease. This would "save NASA approximately $ 6.3 million annually in maintenance and operation costs". Google planned to invest an additional $ 200 million to renovate and restore the structure. Moffett Field's Hangars Two and Three were built at the beginning of World War II for a program of coastal defense. The Hangars are still some of the largest unsupported wooden structures in
845-471: A 30-h.p. internal combustion engine, was forward of the No. 7 engine room. The main rings were spaced at 22.5 m (74 ft) and between each pair were three intermediate rings of lighter construction. In keeping with conventional practice, 'station numbers' on the airship were measured in meters from zero at the rudder post, positive forward and negative aft. Thus the tip of the tail was at station −23.75 and
1014-491: A course toward the Bahamas by late afternoon. Heading northwesterly into the night, Akron then changed course shortly before midnight and proceeded to the southeast. Ultimately, at 9:08 am on 11 January, the airship succeeded in spotting the light cruiser USS Raleigh and 12 destroyers, positively identifying them on the eastern horizon two minutes later. Sighting a second group of destroyers shortly thereafter, Akron
1183-480: A failure without regard to the evidence. Even within the Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics, many opposed spending so much on a single asset. Smith also asserts that political pressure inside and outside the navy led to the ship being pushed too early to attempt too much. Little allowance seems to have been made for the fact that this was a prototype, an experimental system, and that tactics for her use were being developed "on
1352-668: A helicopter operator, also have use of the airfield. In October 2008 the first Zeppelin airship to offer private flights in the United States since 1937's Hindenburg disaster became available for tours of the Bay Area and beyond. The 246-foot (75 m) craft, operated by Airship Ventures , was housed in Hangar Two, was built in Germany and was the fourth modern airship constructed and the third to be put in public service. It
1521-1022: A hotspot for polybrominated diphenyl ether ( PBDE ) flame retardants used to make upholstered furniture and infant care items less flammable. PBDEs have been largely phased out and replaced with alternative phosphate flame retardants. A 2019 San Francisco Estuary Institute (SFEI) study assayed a wide range of these newer flame retardant chemicals in Bay waters, bivalve California mussels ( Mytilus californianus ), and harbor seals ( Phoca vitulina ) which haul out in Corkscrew Slough on Bair Island in San Mateo County , with phosphate flame retardant contaminants such as tris(1,3-dichloro-2-propyl)phosphate (TDCPP) and triphenyl phosphate (TPhP) found at levels comparable to thresholds for aquatic toxicity. Thousands of man-made chemicals are found in Bay water, sediment, and organisms. For many of these, there
1690-554: A major seaport . The Port of Oakland is one of the largest cargo ports in the United States, while the Port of Richmond and the Port of San Francisco provide smaller services. An additional crossing south of the Bay Bridge has long been proposed. San Francisco Bay is popular for sailors (boats, as well as windsurfing and kitesurfing ), due to consistent strong westerly/northwesterly thermally-generated winds – Beaufort force 6 (15–25 knots; 17–29 mph; 8–13 m/s)
1859-661: A major factor in the loss of Akron ' s sister ship Macon . Construction for both ships amounted to $ 8,800,000 (in 1931 dollars) with the Akron accounting $ 5,538,400 of the total. Construction of ZRS-4 was begun on 31 October 1929 at the Goodyear Airdock in Akron, Ohio by the Goodyear-Zeppelin Corporation . Because it was larger than any airship previously built in the US, a special hangar
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#17327801256002028-505: A nine-hour flight with Rear Admiral Moffett and Secretary of the Navy Adams aboard. As a result of this accident, a turntable with a walking beam on tracks powered by electric mine locomotives was developed to secure the tail and turn the ship even in high winds so that it could be pulled into the massive hangar at Lakehurst. Soon after returning to Lakehurst to disembark her distinguished passengers, Akron took off again to conduct
2197-634: A power plant, landing mat, and a mobile mooring mast. The Second Deficiency Appropriation Bill for 1941, passed July 3, 1941, changed the authorization to the construction of 8 facilities to accommodate a total of 48 airships (as requested in 1940), but due to steel rations, a total of 17 large wooden hangars were built among 10 LTA bases. As finally developed in 1943, LTA facilities in addition to NAS Lakehurst (2) and NAS Moffett Field (2), included NAS South Weymouth (1), NAS Weeksville (1), NAS Glynco (2), NAS Richmond (3), NAS Houma (1), NAS Hitchcock (1), NAS Santa Ana (2) and NAS Tillamook (2). In
2366-475: A race to the island of Bermuda . The yacht was later discovered safe off Nantucket . It then resumed operations capturing aircraft on the "trapeze" equipment. Admiral Moffett again boarded Akron on 20 July, but the next day left the airship in one of her N2Y-1s which took him back to Lakehurst after a severe storm had delayed the airship's own return to base. Akron entered a new phase of her career that summer of 1932, engaging in intense experimentation with
2535-447: A reinforced pad anchored to concrete pilings . The floor covers eight acres (32,000 m)) and can accommodate six (360 feet x 160 feet) football fields. The airship hangar itself, measures 1,133 feet (345 m) long and 308 feet (94 m) wide. The building has aerodynamic architecture. Its walls curve upward and inward, to form an elongated dome 198 feet (60 m) high. The clam-shell doors were designed to reduce turbulence when
2704-451: A return trip that was sprinkled with difficulties, mostly because of unfavorable weather, and having to fly at pressure height while crossing the mountains. Akron arrived on 15 June after a "long and sometimes harrowing" aerial voyage. Akron next underwent a period of voyage repairs before taking part in July in a search for Curlew , a yacht which had failed to reach port at the end of
2873-400: A ring. Though much heavier than conventional rings, the deep rings promised to be much stronger, a significant attraction to the navy after the in-flight break up of the earlier conventional airships R38 / ZR-2 and ZR-1 Shenandoah . The inherent strength of these frames allowed the chief designer, Karl Arnstein , to dispense with the internal cruciform structure used by Zeppelin to support
3042-558: A safe eating advisory for fish caught in the San Francisco Bay based on levels of mercury or PCBs found in local species. The San Francisco Bay Area Water Trail is a planned system of designated trailheads designed to improve non-motorized small boat access to the bay. The California Coastal Conservancy approved funding in March 2011 to begin implementation of the water trail. USS Akron (ZRS-4) USS Akron (ZRS-4)
3211-445: A test of the " spy basket "—something like a small airplane fuselage suspended beneath the airship that would enable an observer to serve as the ship's "eyes" below the clouds while the ship herself remained out of sight above them. The first time the basket was tried (with sandbags aboard instead of a man), it oscillated so violently that it put the whole ship in danger. The basket proved "frighteningly unstable", swooping from one side of
3380-623: A training airfield for its growing number of aircraft carrier pilots. The Army resisted strongly, as Rockwell Field was a major training airfield for flight cadets, and had been using the field for flight training since 1912. With the subtle assistance of President Franklin Roosevelt , a former assistant secretary of the Navy, a complex arrangement of facilities realignment was made by the War Department which transferred NAS Sunnyvale and Moffett Field to Army jurisdiction and Rockwell Field to
3549-463: A walkway running almost the entire length of the ship. The electric and telephone wiring, control cables, 110 fuel tanks, 44 water ballast bags, 8 engine rooms, engines, transmissions, and water-recovery devices were placed along the lower keels. The inert gas helium was used instead of flammable hydrogen, which improved streamlining by allowing the engines to be safely placed inside the hull. A generator room, with 2 Westinghouse d.c. generators powered by
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#17327801256003718-560: A widespread distribution in the bay, with uptake in the bay's phytoplankton and contamination of its sportfish. In January 1971, two Standard Oil tankers collided in the bay, creating an 800,000-U.S.-gallon (3,000,000-liter) oil spill disaster , which spurred environmental protection of the bay. In November 2007, a ship named COSCO Busan collided with the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge and spilled over 58,000 U.S. gallons (220,000 liters) of bunker fuel , creating
3887-591: Is also home to several wind tunnels , including the Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel (a National Historic Landmark ), and the National Full-Scale Aerodynamic Complex . In 1930, the city of Sunnyvale acquired a 1,000-acre (4.0 km) parcel of farmland bordering San Francisco Bay , paid for with nearly US$ 480,000 (equivalent to $ 8,754,741 in 2023) raised by the citizens of Santa Clara County , then "sold"
4056-529: Is an area of sand dunes now covered by the ocean. The indigenous inhabitants of the San Francisco Bay are Ohlone . The first European to see San Francisco Bay is likely N. de Morena who was left at New Albion at Drakes Bay in Marin County, California , by Sir Francis Drake in 1579 and then walked to Mexico. The first recorded European discovery of San Francisco Bay was on November 4, 1769, when Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portolá , unable to find
4225-563: Is common on summer afternoons – and protection from large open ocean swells. Yachting and yacht racing are popular pastimes and the San Francisco Bay Area is home to many of the world's top sailors. A shoreline bicycle and pedestrian trail known as the San Francisco Bay Trail encircles the edge of the bay. The San Francisco Bay Area Water Trail , a growing network of launching and landing sites around
4394-433: Is little or no data on their impacts on the environment or human health, and they are not regulated by state or federal law. These are often referred to as "contaminants of emerging concern." The San Francisco Estuary Institute has studied these chemicals in the Bay since 2001. Scientists have identified the following most likely to have a negative impact on Bay wildlife: San Francisco Bay's profile changed dramatically in
4563-493: Is now available to corporate and charter aircraft (jet fuel only)", with prior permission required for landing. Google subsidiary Planetary Ventures has retained contractor Avports LLC to manage the facilities and provide services as a fixed-base operator (FBO). In 2016, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) announced plans to relocate its West Coast science center from nearby Menlo Park to
4732-562: Is pierced by a tunnel linking the east and west spans of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge . Attached to the north is the artificial and flat Treasure Island , site of the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition . From the Second World War until the 1990s, both islands served as military bases and are now being redeveloped. Isolated in the center of the bay is Alcatraz , the site of the famous federal penitentiary. The federal prison on Alcatraz Island no longer functions, but
4901-609: Is shipped throughout the Western United States to bakeries, canneries, fisheries, cheese makers and other food industries and used to de-ice winter highways, clean kidney dialysis machines, for animal nutrition, and in many industries. Many companies have produced salt in the bay, with the Leslie Salt Company the largest private land owner in the Bay Area in the 1940s. Low-salinity salt ponds mirror
5070-661: Is the second-largest estuary on the Pacific coast of the Americas, following the Salish Sea in Washington State and British Columbia, Canada. The bay was navigable as far south as San Jose until the 1850s, when hydraulic mining released massive amounts of sediment from the rivers that settled in those parts of the bay that had little or no current. Later, wetlands and inlets were deliberately filled in, reducing
5239-561: The 7th Psychological Operations Group of the US Army Reserve . Until 28 July 2010, the US Air Force 's 21st Space Operations Squadron was also a tenant command at Moffett Field, occupying the former Onizuka Air Force Station . In addition to these military activities, NASA also operates several of its own aircraft from Moffett. Hangars One , Two, and Three, and the adjacent Shenandoah Plaza are collectively designated as
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5408-405: The Akron stalled , and crashed into the sea. Akron broke up rapidly and sank in the stormy Atlantic. The crew of the nearby German merchant ship Phoebus saw lights descending toward the ocean at about 00:23 and altered course to starboard to investigate, with her captain believing that he was witnessing an airplane crash . At 00:55, executive officer Lieutenant Commander Herbert V. Wiley
5577-550: The Ames Research Center . Moffett Field's facilities available to residents include a Commissary, post office, golf course, and tennis courts. Many of the buildings at Moffett Field which once supported its active military presence have been abandoned and left standing due to asbestos contamination within the structures . Moffett Field is an active airfield , and has two active runways : Moffett Field currently hosts Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley and will be
5746-928: The Dumbarton Rail Bridge , the first bridge crossing San Francisco Bay. The first automobile crossing was the Dumbarton Bridge , completed in January 1927. More crossings were later constructed – the Carquinez Bridge in May 1927, the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge in 1936, the Golden Gate Bridge in 1937, the Richmond–San Rafael Bridge in 1956, and the San Mateo–Hayward Bridge in 1967. During
5915-578: The F-8 Crusader ; while attack aircraft from Alameda were relocated to the newly opened Naval Air Station Lemoore . By 1961, the last fighter aircraft had left Moffett Field. In 1960, the nearby Air Force Satellite Test Center (STC), was created adjacent to (on the SE corner of) NAS Moffett Field. Often referred to as "the Blue Cube," it was operational until 2010 as Onizuka Air Force Station , part of
6084-711: The House Committee on Naval Affairs on board; this time, Lieutenants Harrigan and Young gave the lawmakers a demonstration of Akron ' s aircraft hook-on ability. Following the conclusion of those trial flights, Akron departed from Lakehurst, New Jersey on 8 May 1932, for the American west coast. The airship proceeded down the eastern seaboard to Georgia and then across the southern gulf states, continuing over Texas and Arizona . En route to Sunnyvale, California , Akron reached Camp Kearny in San Diego on
6253-633: The Kamchatka Peninsula and Japan. Recent genetic studies show that there is a local stock from San Francisco to the Russian River and that eastern Pacific coastal populations rarely migrate far, unlike western Atlantic Harbor porpoise. The common bottlenose dolphin ( Tursiops truncatus ) has been extending its current range northwards from the Southern California Bight . The first coastal bottlenose dolphin in
6422-627: The Lockheed P2V Neptune and Lockheed P-3 Orion . Until the demise of the USSR and for some time thereafter, daily anti-submarine , maritime reconnaissance, Fleet support, and various training sorties flew out from NAS Moffett Field to patrol along the Pacific coastline, while Moffett's other squadrons and aircraft periodically deployed to other Pacific, Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf bases for periods of up to six months. The onset of
6591-632: The Macon crashed in the Pacific Ocean on 12 February 1935, the Navy considered closing NAS Sunnyvale and Moffett Field at due to its high cost of operations. Also, in San Diego, the Army and Navy were having jurisdictional issues over Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego harbor, which had both NAS San Diego as well as the Army's Rockwell Field dividing the island. The Navy wanted the Army out of North Island as it needed to expand NAS San Diego as
6760-513: The Macon moved in and out on windy days. The "orange peel" doors, weighing 500 tons (511.88 tonnes ) each, are moved by their own 150 horsepower motors operated via an electrical control panel. The airship hangar's interior is so large that fog sometimes forms near the ceiling. A person unaccustomed to its vastness is susceptible to optical disorientation. Looking across its deck, planes and tractors look like toys. Along its length maintenance shops, inspection laboratories and offices help keep
6929-545: The National Park Service . San Francisco Bay San Francisco Bay is a large tidal estuary in the U.S. state of California , and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area . It is dominated by the cities of San Francisco , San Jose , and Oakland . San Francisco Bay drains water from approximately 40 percent of California. Water from the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, and from
Moffett Federal Airfield - Misplaced Pages Continue
7098-474: The Port of Monterey , continued north close to what is now Pacifica and reached the summit of the 1,200-foot-high (370 m) Sweeney Ridge , now marked as the place where he first sighted San Francisco Bay. Portolá and his party did not realize what they had discovered, thinking they had arrived at a large arm of what is now called Drakes Bay . At the time, Drakes Bay went by the name Bahia de San Francisco and thus both bodies of water became associated with
7267-609: The Rocky Mountains . Also in 1939, the former NAS Sunnyvale saw the establishment of the Ames Aeronautical Laboratory. As an aftermath of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor , the Navy wanted to use Moffett Field and the large dirigible hangar for blimp operations along with Pacific Coast. However, the Army, still stinging about having to transfer Rockwell Field to the Navy, resisted strongly. Again
7436-521: The Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta remain perhaps California's most important ecological habitats . California's Dungeness crab , California halibut , and Pacific salmon fisheries rely on the bay as a nursery. The few remaining salt marshes now represent most of California's remaining salt marsh, supporting a number of endangered species and providing key ecosystem services such as filtering pollutants and sediments from
7605-782: The Sierra Nevada mountains, flow into Suisun Bay , which then travels through the Carquinez Strait to meet with the Napa River at the entrance to San Pablo Bay , which connects at its south end to San Francisco Bay. It then connects to the Pacific Ocean via the Golden Gate strait. However, this entire group of interconnected bays is often called the San Francisco Bay . The bay was designated
7774-609: The Wisconsin Glaciation , between 15,000 and about 10,000 years ago, the basin which is now filled by the San Francisco Bay was a large river valley with small hills, channeling the Sacramento River through the Golden Gate Strait into the ocean. When the great ice sheets began to melt, around 11,000 years ago, the sea level started to rise rapidly, by about 1 inch per year. Melting glaciers in
7943-435: The " Bay fill and depth profile " section. ) There are five large islands in San Francisco Bay. Alameda , the largest island, was created when a shipping lane was cut to form the Port of Oakland in 1901. It is now a suburban community. Angel Island was known as " Ellis Island West" because it served as the entry point for immigrants from East Asia. It is now a state park accessible by ferry. Mountainous Yerba Buena Island
8112-565: The 1989 earthquake, was built on fill that had been placed there for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition , although liquefaction did not occur on a large scale. In the 1990s, San Francisco International Airport proposed filling in hundreds more acres to extend its overcrowded international runways in exchange for purchasing other parts of the bay and converting them back to wetlands. The idea was, and remains, controversial. ( For further details, see
8281-552: The 20th century, the bay was subject to the 1940s Reber Plan , which would have filled in parts of the bay in order to increase industrial activity along the waterfront. In 1959, the United States Army Corps of Engineers released a report stating that if current infill trends continued, the bay would be as big as a shipping channel by 2020. This news created the Save the Bay movement in 1960, which mobilized to stop
8450-1045: The Air Force Satellite Control Network (AFSCN). The building was demolished in 2014. In August 1986 during the NAS Moffett Field Airshow , the Italian demonstration team, Frecce Tricolori , and the German Navy's F-104 flight demonstration team, the Vikings, performed in front of the crowd. At its peak in the 1990s, NAS Moffett Field was the U.S. Navy's principal Pacific Fleet base for the P-3C operations. In addition to headquarters staffs for Commander, U.S. Patrol Wings Pacific Fleet (COMPATWINGSPAC); Commander, Patrol Wing 10 (COMPATWING 10); and Commander, Reserve Patrol Wing Pacific / Patrol Wing 4 (COMRESPATWINGPAC/COMPATWING 4),
8619-674: The Ames Research Center at Moffett Field. The relocation formally began with a ribbon-cutting event in July of 2019. As of April 2024 the project was described as "wrapping up", with "full relocation ... scheduled by the end of the year." On August 16, 1953, the airfield was used for a meeting organised by the Sports Car Club of America . A 5.6 km circuit was created using one of the main runways and adjacent taxiways. [REDACTED] This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of
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#17327801256008788-568: The Atlantic during the last three months of 1932. These operations involved intensive work with the trapeze and the F9C-2s, as well as the drilling of lookouts and gun crews. Among the tasks undertaken were the maintenance of two aircraft patrolling and scouting on Akron ' s flanks. During a seven-hour period on 18 November 1932, the airship and a trio of planes searched a sector 100 mi wide. After local operations out of Lakehurst for
8957-451: The Atlantic where it was assigned to find a group of destroyers bound for Guantánamo Bay, Cuba . Once these were located, the airship was to shadow them and report their movements. Leaving the coast of North Carolina at about 7:21 on the morning of 10 January, the airship proceeded south, but bad weather prevented sighting the destroyers (contact with them was missed at 12:40 EST, although their crews had sighted Akron ) and eventually shaped
9126-491: The Bay Area in recent times was spotted in 1983 off the San Mateo County coast in 1983. In 2001, bottlenose dolphins were first spotted east of the Golden Gate Bridge and confirmed by photographic evidence in 2007. Zooarcheological remains of bottlenose dolphins indicated that bottlenose dolphins inhabited San Francisco Bay in prehistoric times until at least 700 years before present, and dolphin skulls dredged from
9295-572: The Google founders for their private planes, the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Department for their helicopter STAR 1, and Air Force One during presidential visits to the Bay Area . In 2008, the Ames Research Center leased 42 acres around the field to Google. In 2013 Google began building a 1.1 million square foot office complex consisting of nine buildings overlooking San Francisco Bay dubbed "Bay View." The buildings are to be
9464-850: The Korean War brought a restructuring of the Navy's disposition of air forces, resulting in several squadrons being transferred to the Moffett Field as well as Naval Air Station Alameda . During the 1950s the Moffett served as the fighter base, with Alameda hosting attack aircraft. Naval aircraft home based in Moffett included the F9F Panther and FJ-3 Fury . On Feb. 1, 1957, a Navy Thunderjet plane piloted by Capt. Robert Mulvehill, 32, of Edenburg, PA, crashed at 3:25 p.m. in Mountain View while on approach to Moffett Field. The plane
9633-507: The Naval Reserve Aviation Base, Opa-locka, Florida , near Miami, the next day proceeded to Guantánamo Bay for an inspection of base sites. At this time the N2Y-1s were used to provide aerial "taxi" service to ferry members of the inspection party back and forth. Soon thereafter, Akron returned to Lakehurst for local operations which were interrupted by a two-week overhaul and poor weather. In March, it carried out intensive training with an aviation unit of F9C-2s, honing hook-on skills. During
9802-452: The Navy Charles Francis Adams chose the name Akron (for the city near where it was being built), and Assistant Secretary of the Navy Ernest Lee Jahncke announced it in May 1930. On 8 August 1931, Akron was launched (floated free of the hangar floor) and christened by First Lady Lou Henry Hoover , the wife of the President of the United States, Herbert Clark Hoover . The maiden flight of Akron took place around Cleveland on
9971-488: The Navy in October 1935, becoming NAS North Island . Upon taking jurisdiction of NAS Sunnyvale and Moffett Field, the base was renamed Army Air Corps Training Base Sunnyvale. The Army also took on the high cost of Hangar One's maintenance and wanted to inactivate the facility. However, President Roosevelt would not allow the closure of the facility, and the Army assigned Moffett to its Western Flying Training Command as headquarters for pilot and aircrew flight training west of
10140-426: The Navy to restore the hangar, but that it was willing to help save the structure; in particular, NASA was in favor of re-covering the structure at the same time that it was stripped. In April 2011, the exterior panels began coming down, starting at the top. On April 21, 2011, crews began stripping the PCB -laced exterior panels of Hangar One. In November 2014, Planetary Ventures LLC, a Google subsidiary, signed
10309-418: The PCBs, lead and asbestos, and NASA evaluated options for reuse of the hangar. Some historic and nonprofit groups wanted the hangar preserved as a historic landmark, as the hangar is a major Bay Area landmark and historic site. In 2006, an offer to clean the hangar and coat its outsides with solar panels to recoup the costs of cleaning was floated by a private company, but the plan never saw fruition because it
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#173278012560010478-425: The Port of Oakland. Some six million cubic yards (160 million cubic feet; 4.6 million cubic meters) of mud from the dredging was deposited at the western edge of Middle Harbor Shoreline Park to become a 188-acre (0.294 sq mi; 0.76 km ) shallow-water wetlands habitat for marine and shore life. Further dredging followed in 2011, to maintain the navigation channel. This dredging enabled
10647-399: The Russian Timofei Nikitich Tarakanov , these hunting raids probably wiped out sea otters in the bay. Thousands of sea otter skins were taken to Sitka, then Guangzhou (Canton), China, where they commanded a high price. The United States seized the region from Mexico during the Mexican–American War (1846–1848). On February 2, 1848, the Mexican province of Alta California was annexed to
10816-443: The Scouting Fleet. Serving as part of the "Green Force", the Akron attempted to locate the "White Force". Although opposed by Vought O2U Corsair floatplanes from "enemy" warships , the airship located the opposing forces in just 22 hours, a fact not lost upon some of the participants in the exercise in subsequent critiques. In need of repairs, Akron departed from Sunnyvale on 11 June 1932 bound for Lakehurst, New Jersey , on
10985-407: The Sierra Nevada washed huge amounts of sediment down the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, which accumulated on the shores of the bay, forming huge mudflats and marshes that supported local wildlife. By 5000 BC the sea level rose 300 feet (90 m), filling the valley with water from the Pacific. The Farallon Islands are what used to be hills along the old coastline, and Potato Patch Shoal
11154-411: The United States Navy." The loss of the Akron was the largest loss of life in any airship crash. Macon and other airships received life jackets to avert a repetition of this tragedy. When Macon was damaged in a storm in 1935 and subsequently sank after landing in the sea, 70 of the 72 crew were saved. The songwriter Bob Miller wrote and recorded a song, "The Crash of the Akron", within one day of
11323-435: The United States with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo . A year and a half later, California requested to join the United States on December 3, 1849, and was accepted as the 31st State of the Union on September 9, 1850. In 1921, a tablet was dedicated by a group of men in downtown San Francisco, marking the site of the original shoreline. The tablet reads: "This tablet marks the shore line of San Francisco Bay at
11492-427: The afternoon of 23 September with Secretary of the Navy Adams and Rear Admiral Moffett on board. The airship made ten trial flights, including a 2,000-mile (3,200 km) journey over a period of 48 hours to St. Louis , Chicago , and Milwaukee . On 21 October, Akron left the Goodyear Zeppelin Air Dock for the Lakehurst Naval Air Station (NAS) , with Lieutenant Commander Charles E. Rosendahl in command, arriving
11661-496: The air station also hosted Patrol Squadron THIRTY-ONE (VP-31) ...the west coast P-3C Fleet Replacement Squadron, six additional active duty P-3C squadrons and a Naval Air Reserve P-3C squadron in addition to NASA and California Air National Guard aviation activities. Post- Cold War defense cutbacks and related Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) actions in the 1990s identified NAS Moffett Field for closure. The west coast Fleet Replacement Squadron, Patrol Squadron 31 ( VP-31 ),
11830-421: The airplanes, which should do all of the actual searching. Any aircraft carrier could do that, but only an airship could do it so quickly since her speed was at least twice that of a surface ship, enabling her to get to the scene or be switched from flank to flank quickly. However, it was an experimental ship, a prototype, and it took time for the doctrine and suitable tactics to evolve. It also took time to develop
11999-454: The airship an hour later. Akron moored at Camp Kearny later that day before proceeding to Sunnyvale, California . Footage from the accident appears in the film Encounters with Disaster , released in 1979 and produced by Sun Classic Pictures . Over the weeks that followed, Akron "showed the flag" on the West Coast of the United States , ranging as far north as the Canada–US border before returning south in time to exercise once more with
12168-525: The airship paused at Opa-locka again for local operations exercising gun crews, with the N2Y-1s serving as targets, before getting underway for Lakehurst on 22 March. On the evening of 3 April 1933, Akron cast off from the mooring mast to operate along the coast of New England , assisting in the calibration of radio direction finder stations. Rear Admiral Moffett was again on board along with his aide, Commander Henry Barton Cecil, Commander Fred T. Berry,
12337-427: The airship to remain hidden in a cloud layer, while still observing the enemy below. The small car, rather like an airplane fuselage without wings, could be lowered on a 1000 foot long cable. The observer on board communicated with the ship by telephone. In practice, the device was unstable, almost looping over the airship during its only test flight. During the design stage, in 1929, the navy requested an alteration to
12506-434: The airship to the other before the startled gaze of Akron ' s officers and men and reaching as high as the ship's equator. Though it was later improved by adding a ventral stabilizing fin, the spybasket was never used again. Akron and Macon (which was still under construction) were regarded as potential "flying aircraft carriers ", carrying parasite fighters for reconnaissance. On 3 May 1932, Akron cruised over
12675-435: The airship was being taken from her hangar, the tail came loose from her moorings, was caught by the wind, and struck the ground. The heaviest damage was confined to the lower fin area, which required repair. Also, ground handling fittings had been torn from the main frame, necessitating further repairs. Akron was not certified as airworthy again until later in the spring. Her next operation took place on 28 April, when it made
12844-581: The airship's survivors and the body of Copeland on board. Among the other ships combing the area for survivors were the heavy cruiser Portland , the destroyer Cole , the Coast Guard cutter Mojave , and the Coast Guard destroyers McDougal and Hunt , as well as two Coast Guard aircraft. The fishing vessel Grace F from Gloucester, Massachusetts , also assisted in the search, using her seining gear in an effort to recover bodies. Most casualties had been caused by drowning and hypothermia, since
13013-431: The arrival of Europeans. Indigenous peoples used canoes to fish and clam along the shoreline. Sailing ships enabled transportation between the bay and other parts of the world—and served as ferries and freighters within the bay and between the bay and inland ports, such as Sacramento and Stockton. These were gradually replaced by steam-powered vessels starting in the late 19th century. Several shipyards were established around
13182-628: The arrival of the largest container ship ever to enter the San Francisco Bay, the MSC Fabiola . Bay pilots trained for the visit on a simulator at the California Maritime Academy for over a year. The ship arrived drawing less than its full draft of 50 feet 10 inches (15.5 m) because it held only three-quarters of a load after its stop in Long Beach. San Francisco Bay was traversed by watercraft before
13351-401: The average depth of the bay is only as deep as a swimming pool—approximately 12 to 15 ft (4–5 m). Between Hayward and San Mateo to San Jose it is 12 to 36 in (30–90 cm). The deepest part of the bay is under and out of the Golden Gate Bridge, at 372 ft (113 m). In the late 1990s, a 12-year harbor-deepening project for the Port of Oakland began; it
13520-533: The bay for non-motorized small boat users (such as kayakers) is being developed. Parks and protected areas around the bay include Eden Landing Ecological Reserve , Hayward Regional Shoreline , Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge , Hayward Shoreline Interpretive Center , Crown Memorial State Beach , Eastshore State Park , Point Isabel Regional Shoreline , Brooks Island Regional Preserve , and César Chávez Park . The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) has developed
13689-522: The bay perimeter. San Francisco Bay provided the nation's first wildlife refuge, Oakland's artificial Lake Merritt , constructed in the 1860s, and America's first urban National Wildlife Refuge, the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge (SFBNWR) in 1972. The bay is also plagued by non-native species. Salt produced from San Francisco Bay is produced in salt evaporation ponds and
13858-417: The bay suggest occasional visitors in historic times. San Francisco Bay faces many of the same water quality issues as other urban waterways in industrialized countries, or downstream of intensive agriculture. According to state water quality regulators, San Francisco Bay waters do not meet water quality standards for the following pollutants: Industrial, mining, and other uses of mercury have resulted in
14027-404: The bay's size since the mid-19th century by as much as one third. Recently, large areas of wetlands have been restored, further confusing the issue of the bay's size. Despite its value as a waterway and harbor , many thousands of acres of marshy wetlands at the edges of the bay were, for many years, considered wasted space. As a result, soil excavated for building projects or dredged from channels
14196-481: The bay, augmented during wartime (e.g., the Kaiser Shipyards , Richmond Shipyards ) near Richmond in 1940 for World War II for construction of mass-produced, assembly line Liberty and Victory cargo ships . San Francisco Bay is spanned by nine bridges, eight of which carry cars . The Transbay Tube , an underwater rail tunnel, carries BART services between Oakland and San Francisco. Prior to
14365-403: The bottom of the ship at station 102.5 and known as the 'perch'. By 1933 a perch was fitted and in use. Three more perches were planned (at stations 57.5, 80 and 147.5) but these were never fitted. Akron revived an idea used, and eventually rejected, by the German Navy zeppelins during World War I : the spähkorb or 'spy basket'. The "angel basket" or "sub-cloud observation car", allowed
14534-673: The bridges and, later, the Transbay Tube, transbay transportation was dominated by fleets of ferryboats operated by the Southern Pacific Railroad and the Key System transit company. However, in recent decades, ferries have returned, primarily serving commuters from Marin County, relieving the traffic bottleneck of the Golden Gate Bridge (see Ferries of San Francisco Bay ). The bay also continues to serve as
14703-541: The center of the bay, following the ancient drowned river valley. In the 1860s and continuing into the early 20th century, miners dumped staggering quantities of mud and gravel from hydraulic mining operations into the upper Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers. GK Gilbert's estimates of debris total more than eight times the amount of rock and dirt moved during construction of the Panama Canal. This material flowed down
14872-572: The coast of New Jersey with Rear Admiral George C. Day , and the Board of Inspection and Survey , on board, and for the first time tested the "trapeze" installation for in-flight handling of aircraft. The aviators who carried out those historic "landings"—first with a Consolidated N2Y trainer and then with the prototype Curtiss XF9C-1 Sparrowhawk —were Lieutenant D. Ward Harrigan and Lieutenant Howard L. Young. The following day, Akron carried out another demonstration flight, this time with members of
15041-459: The commanding officer of NAS Lakehurst, and Lieutenant Colonel Alfred F. Masury, U.S. Army Reserve , a guest of the admiral, the vice-president of Mack Trucks , and a strong proponent of the potential civilian uses of rigid airships. After casting off at 19:28, Akron soon encountered fog and then severe weather, which did not improve when the airship passed over Barnegat Light, New Jersey , at 22:00. According to Richard K. Smith, "[u]nknown to
15210-589: The complex is a popular tourist site. Despite its name, Mare Island in the northern part of the bay is a peninsula rather than an island. San Francisco Bay is thought to represent a down-warping of the Earth's crust between the San Andreas Fault to the west and the Hayward Fault to the east, though the precise nature of this remains under study. About 560,000 years ago, a tectonic shift caused
15379-566: The country. In 1940, the US Navy proposed to the US Congress the development of a lighter-than-air station program for anti-submarine patrolling of the coast and harbors. This program proposed the construction of new stations in addition to the expansion at NAS Lakehurst. The original contract was for steel hangars, 960 feet (290 m) long, 328 feet (100 m) wide and 190 feet (58 m), helium storage and service, barracks for 228 men,
15548-408: The course of these operations, an overfly of Washington DC was made 4 March 1933, the day Franklin D. Roosevelt first took the oath of office as President of the United States. On 11 March, Akron departed Lakehurst bound for Panama stopping briefly en route at Opa-locka before proceeding on to Balboa where an inspection party looked over a potential air base site. While returning northward,
15717-414: The crash of Akron until Lt. Commander Wiley regained consciousness half an hour after being rescued. The crew of Phoebus combed the ocean in boats for over five hours in a fruitless search for more survivors. The Navy blimp J-3 —sent out to join the search—also crashed, with the loss of two men. The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Tucker —the first American vessel on the scene—arrived at 06:00, taking
15886-417: The crew had not been issued life jackets, and there had not been time to deploy the single life raft. The accident left 73 dead, and only three survivors. Wiley, standing next to the two other survivors, gave a brief account on 6 April. Akron ' s loss spelled the beginning of the end for the rigid airship in the U.S. Navy, especially since one of her leading proponents, Rear Admiral William A. Moffett ,
16055-459: The decades surrounding 1900, at the behest of local political officials and following Congressional orders, the U.S. Army Corps began dredging the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers and the deep channels of San Francisco Bay. This work has continued without interruption ever since. Some of the dredge spoils were initially dumped in the bay shallows (including helping to create Treasure Island on
16224-553: The disaster. In 2003, the U.S. submarine NR-1 surveyed the wreck site and performed sonar imaging of the Akron' s girders. For numerous reasons, in the opinion of Richard K. Smith, Akron never got the chance to show what it was capable of. Initially, the idea had been to use her as a scout for the fleet, just as the German Navy zeppelins had been used during World War I , with her airplanes being simply useful auxiliaries capable of extending her range of vision or of defending her against attacking enemy aircraft. Gradually, in
16393-474: The discovery that the structure was leaking toxic chemicals into the sediment in wetlands bordering San Francisco Bay. The chemicals originated in the lead paint and toxic materials, including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), used to coat the hangar. Options under debate included tearing down the hangar and reusing the land, and cleaning the toxic waste from the site and refurbishing the hangar for future preservation. The US Navy evaluated options for remediating
16562-419: The ecosystem of the bay, with fish and fish-eating birds in abundance. Mid-salinity ponds support dense populations of brine shrimp , which provide a rich food source for millions of shorebirds. Only salt-tolerant micro-algae survive in the high salinity ponds, and impart a deep red color to these ponds from the pigment within the algae protoplasm. The salt marsh harvest mouse is an endangered species endemic to
16731-514: The expedition's cartographer, José de Cañizares, gathered the information necessary to produce the first map of the area. A number of place names survive (anglicized) from that first map, including Point Reyes , Angel Island , Farallon Islands , and Alcatraz Island . Alaskan Native sea otter hunters using Aleutian kayaks and working for the Russian–American Company entered San Francisco Bay in 1807 and again over 1810–1811. Led by
16900-505: The few Naval Air Stations named after an individual. The Navy then built Hangars 2 and 3 on the eastern side of the runways for additional blimp operations. Due to the priority of metal for use in building war materials such as airplanes, ships and tanks, these two hangars were built from wood and concrete. From the end of World War II until its closure, NAS Moffett Field saw the development and use of several generations of land-based anti-submarine warfare and maritime patrol aircraft, including
17069-447: The fins of their ships. Instead, the fins of Akron were cantilevered: mounted entirely externally to the main structure. Graf Zeppelin , Graf Zeppelin II , and Hindenburg used a supplementary axial keel along the hull centerline. However, the Akron used three keels, one running along the top of the hull and one each side, 45 degrees up from the lower centreline. Each keel provided
17238-488: The fins. It was considered desirable for the bottom of the lower fin to be visible from the control car. Charles E. Rosendahl had witnessed, from the control room, Graf Zeppelin almost snagging her fin on high-tension power lines during her heavy take off into an unsuspected but very marked temperature inversion from Mines Field , Los Angeles at the start of the last leg of her round-the-world flight earlier that year. The design change would also allow direct vision between
17407-479: The first time in 65 years, Pacific Harbor Porpoise ( Phocoena phocoena ) returned to the bay in 2009. Golden Gate Cetacean Research, a non-profit organization focused on research on cetaceans , has developed a photo-identification database enabling the scientists to identify specific porpoise individuals and is trying to ascertain whether a healthier bay has brought their return. Pacific harbor porpoise range from Point Conception , California, to Alaska and across to
17576-561: The former shoals to the north of Yerba Buena Island ) and used to raise islands in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The net effect of dredging has been to maintain a narrow deep channel—deeper perhaps than the original bay channel—through a much shallower bay. At the same time, most of the marsh areas have been filled or blocked off from the bay by dikes . Large ships transiting the bay must follow deep underwater channels that are maintained by frequent dredging as
17745-548: The four propellers on each side were contra-rotating, each one turning the opposite way to the one ahead of it. Thus it would appear that the designers were aware that running the propellers in the air disturbed by the one ahead was not ideal. While the external engine pods of other airships allowed the thrust lines to be staggered, placing all four engine rooms on each side of the ship along the lower keel resulted in Akron ' s propellers all being in line. This proved problematic in service, as it induced considerable vibration which
17914-452: The full width of the airship hangar. Other Mythbusters episodes have utilized the hangar to test myths such as "Inflating a football with helium allows longer kick distances" and "Airworthy aircraft can be constructed of concrete." Hangar 3 was demolished in stages beginning in Summer 2024, after NASA and Google concluded it would be "cost-prohibitive" to repair. Five of the original 17 of
18083-434: The gas cells used an experimental cotton-based fabric impregnated with a gelatin-latex compound. This was more expensive than the rubberised cotton but lighter than goldbeater's skin. It was so successful that all the gasbags of Macon were made from it. There were 12 gas cells, numbered 0 to XI, using Roman numerals and starting from the tail. While the 'air volume' of the hull was 7,401,260 cu ft (209,580 m ),
18252-400: The hangar and one on the trapeze). A modification to remove this design flaw was pending at the time of the ship's loss. The F9C was not the ideal choice, being designed as a 'conventional' carrier-borne fighter. It was heavily built to withstand carrier landings, downward visibility was not very good and it initially lacked an effective radio. But the primary role of Akron ' s airplanes
18421-412: The hangar busy. Looking up, a network of catwalks for access to all parts of the structure can be seen. Two elevators meet near the top, allowing maintenance personnel to get to the top quickly and easily. Narrow gauge tracks run through the length of the hangar. During the period of lighter-than-air dirigibles and non-rigid aircraft, the rails extended across the apron and into the fields at each end of
18590-408: The hangar. This tramway facilitated the transportation of an airship on the mooring mast to the airship hangar interior or to the flight position. During the brief period that the Macon was based at Moffett, Hangar One accommodated not only the giant airship but several smaller, non-rigid blimps simultaneously. In 2003, plans to convert Hangar One to a space and science center were put on hold with
18759-408: The hook and the airplane fell away from the ship. On his return, he positioned himself beneath the trapeze and climbed up until he could fly his skyhook onto the crossbar, at which point it automatically latched shut. Now, with the engine idling, the trapeze and airplane were raised into the hangar, the pilot cutting his engine as he passed through the door. Once inside, the airplane was transferred from
18928-414: The increased span of the control surfaces, and simplified stress calculations, by reducing the number of fin attachment points. The designers and the navy's inspectors, led by the very experienced Charles P Burgess, were entirely satisfied with the revised stress calculations. However, this alteration has been the subject of much criticism as an "inherent defect" in the design and is often alleged to have been
19097-503: The infill of wetlands and the bay in general, which had shrunk to two-thirds of its size in the century before 1961. The San Francisco Bay continues to support some of the densest industrial production and urban settlement in the United States. The San Francisco Bay Area is the American West's second-largest urban area, with approximately seven million residents. Despite its urban and industrial character, San Francisco Bay and
19266-540: The initial program, accommodations were provided for six airships at each station. This was later increased to twelve at seven of the stations and to eighteen at NAS Richmond as a result of an increase in the authorized strength to 200 airships. An episode of the Discovery Channel TV show MythBusters used one of the hangars to disprove the myth that it is not possible to fold a sheet of paper in half more than seven times. The sheet of paper covered nearly
19435-501: The inter-service rivalry was overruled by the War Department, citing the Navy's need for coastal defense a priority and ordered the Army to move its training headquarters to Hamilton Field in Marin County, north of San Francisco. On April 16, 1942, control of the facility was returned to the Navy and it was recommissioned as NAS Sunnyvale. Four days later it was again renamed Naval Air Station Moffett Field, thereby becoming one of
19604-469: The large inland Lake Corcoran to spill out the central valley and through the Carquinez Strait , carving out sediment and forming canyons in what is now the northern part of the San Francisco Bay and Golden Gate strait . San Francisco Bay has been filled and emptied of sea water many times during the Pleistocene in accordance with sea level changes caused by glacial advances and retreats. During
19773-482: The largest oil spill in the region since 1996. The bay also has some of the highest levels of dissolved inorganic nitrogen known from any coastal water body, mostly originating from treated wastewater from Publicly owned treatment works . In other bays, such nutrient levels would likely lead to eutrophication , but historically, the bay has had less harmful algal blooms than other water bodies with similar nutrient concentrations. Potential explanations have included
19942-400: The largest flying objects ever built. Although LZ 129 Hindenburg and LZ 130 Graf Zeppelin II were some 18 ft (5.5 m) longer and slightly more voluminous, the two German airships were filled with hydrogen , and so the two US Navy craft still hold the world record for the largest helium-filled airships. Akron was destroyed in a thunderstorm off the coast of New Jersey on
20111-561: The late 19th century and again with the initiation of dredging by the US Army Corps of Engineers in the 20th century. Before about 1860, most bay shores (with the exception of rocky shores, such as those in Carquinez Strait; along Marin shoreline; Point Richmond; Golden Gate area) contained extensive wetlands that graded nearly invisibly from freshwater wetlands to salt marsh and then tidal mudflat. A deep channel ran through
20280-583: The latter's BRAC -directed closure in 1999, at which time the Barbers Point squadrons moved to Marine Corps Air Facility Kaneohe Bay , Hawaii. On 1 July 1994, NAS Moffett Field was closed as a naval air station and turned over to the NASA Ames Research Center . NASA Ames now operates the facility as Moffett Federal Airfield . Since being decommissioned as a primary military installation, part of Moffett has been made accessible to
20449-464: The loss of the USS Akron on 4 April 1933, the airfield at NAS Sunnyvale was renamed Moffett Field on 1 September 1933. In the tradition of the Navy, the installation is named for the surrounding city, while the airfield on the installation, including runways, can be named after an individual. Examples include Forrest Sherman Airfield at NAS Pensacola and Halsey Airfield at NAS North Island. After
20618-622: The lower keels to preserve the ship's trim, giving her a normal range of 5,940 nmi (6,840 mi ; 11,000 km ) at cruising speed. Theoretical maximum ballast water capacity was 223,000 lb (101,000 kg) in 44 bags, again distributed along her length, though normal ballast load at unmasting was 20,000 lb (9,100 kg). Maximum ballast was never an option, because a full fuel and ballast load would have left only 4,600 lb (2,100 kg) lifting capacity for aircraft, crew, and supplies, and each fully loaded F9C fighter alone weighed 2,800 lb (1,300 kg). The heart of
20787-416: The main control car and the emergency control position in the lower fin. The control car was moved 8 ft (2.4 m) aft and all the fins were shortened and deepened. The leading edge root of the fins no longer coincided with a main (deep) ring and instead the foremost attachment was now to an intermediate ring at frame 28.75. This achieved the required visibility, improved low-speed controllability, due to
20956-472: The men on board the Akron , they were flying ahead of one of the most violent stormfronts to sweep the North Atlantic States in ten years. It would soon envelop them." Enveloped in fog, increased lightning and heavy rain, it became extremely turbulent at 00:15. The Akron began a rapid nose-down descent, reaching 1,100 feet (340 m) while still falling. Ballast was dumped, which stabilized
21125-425: The minds of the more forward-thinking officers familiar with airship and scouting fleet operations, that was reversed, it and Macon came to be regarded as aircraft carriers, whose sole job was to get the scouting airplanes to the search area and then to support them in their flights. The mothership herself should stay in the background, out of sight of enemy surface units, and act merely as a mobile advanced base for
21294-449: The morning of 11 May and attempted to moor. Since neither trained ground handlers nor specialized mooring equipment were present, the landing at Camp Kearny was fraught with danger. By the time the crew started the evaluation, the helium gas had been warmed by sunlight, increasing lift. Lightened by 40 short tons (36 t), the amount of fuel spent during the transcontinental trip, Akron was now uncontrollably light. The mooring cable
21463-501: The morning of 4 April 1933, killing 73 of the 76 crewmen and passengers. The accident involved the greatest loss of life in any airship crash. The airship's skeleton was built of the new lightweight alloy duralumin 17-SRT. The frame introduced several novel features compared with traditional Zeppelin designs. Rather than being single-girder diamond trusses with radial wire bracing, the main rings of Akron were self-supporting deep frames: triangular Warren trusses 'curled' round to form
21632-534: The name. Eventually, the larger, more important body of water fully appropriated the name San Francisco Bay . The first European to enter the bay is believed to have been the Spanish explorer Juan de Ayala , who passed through the Golden Gate on August 5, 1775, in his ship the San Carlos and moored in a bay of Angel Island now known as Ayala Cove. Ayala continued to explore the San Francisco Bay Area and
21801-521: The new headquarters for Google and will be part of the nearby Googleplex . Moffett Field's " Hangar One " (built during the Depression era for the USS Macon ) and the row of World War II blimp hangars are still some of the largest unsupported structures in the country. The airship hangar is constructed on a network of steel girders sheathed with galvanized steel . It rests firmly upon
21970-417: The next day. On Navy Day , 27 October 1931, the Akron was commissioned as a Navy vessel. On 2 November 1931, Akron departed on her first cruise down the eastern seaboard to Washington, D.C. On 3 November the Akron took to the air with 207 persons on board. This demonstration was to prove that in an emergency airships could provide limited but high speed airlift of troops to outlying possessions. Over
22139-557: The nose mooring spindle was at station 210.75. Each ring frame formed a polygon with 36 corners and these (and their associated longitudinal girders) were numbered from 1 (at the bottom centre) to 18 (at the top centre) port and starboard. Thus a position on the hull could be referred to, for example, as "6 port at station 102.5" (the number 1 engine room). While Germany, France and Britain used goldbeater's skin to gas-proof their gasbags, Akron used Goodyear Tire and Rubber's rubberised cotton, heavier but much cheaper and more durable. Half
22308-464: The original facilities was begun 8 July 1931. The base was originally named Airbase Sunnyvale CAL as it was thought that calling it Mountain View would cause officials to fear airships colliding with mountainsides. The original station was commissioned on 12 April 1933 and dedicated NAS Sunnyvale . After the death of Rear Admiral William A. Moffett , who is credited with the creation of the airfield, in
22477-555: The parcel for $ 1 to the US government as a home base for the Navy airship USS Macon . The location proved to be ideal for an airport, since the area is often clear while other parts of the San Francisco Bay are covered in fog. This is due to the Coast Range to the west, which blocks the cold oceanic air that is the cause of San Francisco fog . The naval air station (NAS) was authorized by an Act of Congress, signed by President Herbert Hoover on 12 February 1931. Construction of
22646-416: The presence of intensive "top-down control" from grazing clams like Potamocorbula , high sediment supply limiting light availability for the algae, and intensive tidal mixing. The occurrence of an unprecedented harmful algal bloom of Heterosigma akashiwo in 2022, resulting in mass fish deaths and anoxia, suggests that the mechanisms of control on algal growth may be eroding. The bay was once considered
22815-580: The public, including a cordoned portion of the interior of the massive Hangar One. There were once balloon rides given on show days, and micro-weather still occurs in the cavernous space. Moffett Federal Airfield has occasional air traffic, with an average of 5-10 flights landing per day. Moffett is regularly used by the California Air National Guard , NASA, Lockheed Martin Space Systems (commercial satellite manufacturer),
22984-421: The remainder of 1932, Akron was ready to resume operations with the fleet. On the afternoon of 3 January 1933, Commander Frank C. McCord relieved Commander Dresel as commanding officer, the latter becoming the first commanding officer of Akron ' s sister ship Macon , whose construction was almost complete. Within hours, Akron headed south down the eastern seaboard toward Florida where, after refueling at
23153-501: The revolutionary "trapeze" and a full complement of F9C-2s. A key element of the entrance into that new phase was a new commanding officer, Commander Alger Dresel. Another accident hampered training on 22 August when Akron ' s tail fin became fouled by a beam in Lakehurst's massive Hangar No 1 after a premature order to commence towing the ship out of the mooring circle. Nevertheless, rapid repairs enabled eight more flights over
23322-463: The rivers, progressively eroding into finer and finer sediment, until it reached the bay system. Here some of it settled, eventually filling in Suisun Bay, San Pablo Bay, and San Francisco Bay, in decreasing order of severity. By the end of the 19th century, these " slickens " had filled in much of the shallow bay flats, raising the entire bay profile. New marshes were created in some areas. In
23491-896: The rivers. San Francisco Bay is recognized for protection by the California Bays and Estuaries Policy , with oversight provided by the San Francisco Estuary Partnership . Most famously, the bay is a key link in the Pacific Flyway . Millions of waterfowl annually use the bay shallows as a refuge. Two endangered species of birds are found here: the California least tern and the Ridgway's Rail . Exposed bay muds provide important feeding areas for shorebirds , but underlying layers of bay mud pose geological hazards for structures near many parts of
23660-447: The same. Normally, expensive helium has to be released to compensate and any way of avoiding this is desirable. In theory, a water recovery system such as this can produce 1 lb of ballast water for every lb of fuel burned, though this is unlikely to be achieved in practice. Akron could carry up to 20,700 US gal (78,000 L) of gasoline (126,000 lb (57,000 kg)) in 110 separate tanks which were distributed along
23829-408: The ship at 700 feet (210 m), and climbed back to 1,600-foot (490 m) cruising altitude. Then a second violent descent sent the Akron downwards at 14 feet per second (4.3 m/s). "Landing stations" alerted the crew, as the ship descended tail-down. The lower fin struck the sea, water entered the fin, and the stern was dragged under. The engines pulled the ship into a nose-high attitude, then
23998-402: The ship, and her sole reason for existing, was the airplane hangar and trapeze system. Aft of the control car, in bay VII, between frames 125 and 141.25, was a compartment large enough to accommodate up to five F9C Sparrowhawk airplanes. However, two structural girders partially obstructed Akron ' s aftmost hangar bays, limiting its capacity to three airplanes (one in each forward corner of
24167-598: The site of Berkeley Space Center, a new campus of UC Berkeley . These are within the base primarily to support the academic and research collaboration between these institutions and NASA Ames. Moffett Airfield is home to H211, LLC, owned by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin . Through the LLC they pay $ 1.3 million a year to NASA to park their Boeing 767-200 and Gulfstream V jets. The airplanes have also had scientific equipment installed by NASA to allow experiments to be run in flight. Lockheed Martin and Jon Stark,
24336-402: The skin was 330,000 sq ft (31,000 m ) and it weighed, after doping, 113,000 lb (51,000 kg). The prominent dark vertical bands on the hull were condensers of the system designed to recover water from the engines' exhaust for buoyancy compensation . In-flight fuel consumption continuously reduces an airship's weight and changes in the temperature of the lifting gas can do
24505-477: The skyhook airplanes) Eight Maybach VL II 560 hp (420 kW) gasoline engines were mounted inside the hull. Each engine turned a two-bladed, 16 ft 4 in (4.98 m) diameter, fixed pitch, wooden propeller via a driveshaft and bevel gearing which allowed the propeller to swivel from the vertical plane to the horizontal. With the engines' ability to reverse, this allowed thrust to be applied forward, aft, up or down. It appears from photographs that
24674-402: The techniques of navigating, controlling, and coordinating the scouts. At first, developments were hampered by inadequate radio equipment, as well as the difficulties encountered by the scout pilots in navigating, scouting, and communicating from their cramped open cockpits. Some politicians, some senior officers, and some sections of the press seemed predisposed to judge the airship experiment
24843-734: The time of the discovery of gold in California, January 24, 1848. Map reproduced above delineates old shore line. Placed by the Historic Landmarks committee, Native Sons of the Golden West , 1921." The bay became the center of American settlement and commerce in the Far West through most of the remainder of the 19th century. During the California Gold Rush (1848–1855), San Francisco Bay suddenly became one of
25012-494: The total volume of the gas cells at 100 percent fill was 6,850,000 cu ft (194,000 m ). At a normal 95 percent fill with helium of standard purity, the 6,500,000 cu ft (180,000 m ) of gas would yield a gross lift of 403,000 lb (183,000 kg). Given a structure deadweight of 242,356 lb (109,931 kg), this gives a useful lift of 160,644 lb (72,867 kg) available for fuel, lubricants, ballast, crew, supplies and military load (including
25181-444: The trapeze to a trolley, running on an overhead 'monorail' system by which it could be shunted into one of the four corners of the hangar to be refueled and re-armed. Having a single trapeze raised two problems: it limited the rate at which airplanes could be launched and recovered and any fault in the trapeze would leave any airborne scouts with nowhere to land. The solution was a second, fixed trapeze permanently rigged further aft along
25350-572: The weather, duration of flight, a track of more than 3,000 mi (4,800 km) flown, her material deficiencies, and the rudimentary character of aerial navigation at that date, the Akron 's performance was remarkable. There was not a military airplane in the world in 1932 which could have given the same performance, operating from the same base." Akron was to have taken part in Fleet Problem XIII , but an accident at Lakehurst on 22 February 1932 prevented her participation. While
25519-634: The weeks that followed, some 300 hours aloft were logged in a series of flights, including a 46-hour endurance flight to Mobile, Alabama , and back. The return leg of the trip was made via the valleys of the Mississippi River and the Ohio River . On the morning of 9 January 1932, Akron departed from Lakehurst to work with the Scouting Fleet on a search exercise. Proceeding to the coast of North Carolina , Akron headed out over
25688-434: The wetlands of the San Francisco Bay with a high salt tolerance. It needs native pickleweed , which is often displaced by invasive cordgrass, for its habitat. The seasonal range of water temperature in the bay is from January's 53 °F (12 °C) to September's 60 °F (16 °C) when measured at Fort Point , which is near the southern end of the Golden Gate Bridge and at the entrance to San Francisco Bay. For
25857-406: The wooden hangars still exist: Moffett Field (1), Tustin, California (1), Tillamook, Oregon (1), and Lakehurst, New Jersey (2). Despite its closure as an active military base, Moffett Field still has many active facilities and residents. Active military families still live on Moffett Community Housing, and the former base has several lodges which primarily house academics and students associated with
26026-559: The world's great seaports, dominating shipping in the American West until the last years of the 19th century. The bay's regional importance increased further when the first transcontinental railroad was connected to its western terminus at Alameda on September 6, 1869. The terminus was switched to the Oakland Long Wharf two months later on November 8, 1869. In 1910, the Southern Pacific railroad company built
26195-443: The world's largest freestanding wood structures. The hangars were constructed when the US Navy established ten lighter-than-air bases across the United States during World War II as part of the coastal defense plan. Six of the original seventeen of these wooden hangars still exist: two at Moffett Field, one at Tustin, California , one at Tillamook, Oregon , and two at Lakehurst, New Jersey . The adjacent NASA Ames Research Center
26364-419: Was a helium -filled rigid airship of the U.S. Navy , the lead ship of her class , which operated between September 1931 and April 1933. It was the world's first purpose-built flying aircraft carrier , carrying F9C Sparrowhawk fighter planes , which could be launched and recovered while it was in flight. With an overall length of 785 ft (239 m), Akron and her sister ship Macon were among
26533-470: Was among the dead. President Roosevelt said, "The loss of the Akron with her crew of gallant officers and men is a national disaster. I grieve with the Nation and especially with the wives and families of the men who were lost. Ships can be replaced, but the Nation can ill afford to lose such men as Rear Admiral William A. Moffett and his shipmates who died with him upholding to the end the finest traditions of
26702-492: Was constructed. Chief Designer Karl Arnstein and a team of experienced German airship engineers instructed and supported design and construction of both U.S. Navy airships USS Akron and USS Macon . On 7 November 1929, Rear Admiral William A. Moffett , the Chief of the U.S. Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics , drove the "golden rivet" into the main ring of "ZRS4". Erection of the hull sections began in March 1930. Secretary of
26871-691: Was cut to avert a catastrophic nose-stand by the errant airship which floated upwards. Most of the mooring crew—predominantly "boot" seamen from the Naval Training Station San Diego —released their lines although four did not. One let go at about 15 ft (4.6 m) and suffered a broken arm while the three others were carried further aloft. Of these, Aviation Carpenter's Mate 3rd Class Robert H. Edsall and Apprentice Seaman Nigel M. Henton soon plunged to their deaths while Apprentice Seaman C. M. "Bud" Cowart held on to his line and then secured himself to it before being hoisted on board
27040-581: Was deactivated and its functions combined with its east coast counterpart, Patrol Squadron 30 (VP-30) at NAS Jacksonville , Florida. Several active duty P-3C squadrons, the Naval Air Reserve P-3C squadron and COMRESPATWINGPAC/COMPATWING 4 were also deactivated, while COMPATWINGSPAC and COMPATWING 10 (redesignated COMPATRECONWING 10) transferred to NAS Whidbey Island , Washington and the remaining patrol squadrons transferred to NAS Whidbey Island , Washington or NAS Barbers Point , Hawaii until
27209-486: Was dedicated and given the name Eureka at the celebration of Moffett Field's 75th anniversary. Zeppelin flights ended in November 2012, and Airship Ventures ceased business. Eureka was disassembled and returned to Germany. Strong community opposition to the use of the airfield by FedEx Express and UPS Airlines blocked the transition of the airfield to public use in the 1990s. AirNav.com reports that "Moffett Field
27378-421: Was especially noticeable in the emergency control position in the lower fin. By 1933, Akron had two of her propellers replaced by more advanced, ground-adjustable, three-bladed, metal propellers. These promised a performance increase and were adopted as standard for Macon . The outer cover was of cotton cloth, treated with four coats of clear and two coats of aluminum pigmented cellulose dope. The total area of
27547-697: Was largely completed by September 2009. Previously, the bay waters and harbor facilities only allowed for ships with a draft of 46 ft (14 m), but dredging activities undertaken by the United States Army Corps of Engineers in partnership with the Port of Oakland succeeded in providing access for vessels with a 50-foot (15 m) draft. Four dredging companies were employed in the US$ 432 ;million project, with $ 244 million paid for with federal funds and $ 188 million supplied by
27716-589: Was long-range naval scouting. What was actually needed was a stable, fast, lightweight scouting airplane with a long range, but none existed capable of fitting between the structural members and into the airship's hangar, as the F9C could. The trapeze was lowered through the T-shaped door in the bottom of the ship and into the slipstream, with an airplane attached to the crossbar by the 'skyhook' above its top wing, its pilot on board and its engine running. The pilot tripped
27885-531: Was often dumped onto the wetlands and other parts of the bay as landfill. From the mid-19th century through the late 20th century, more than a third of the original bay was filled and often built on. The deep, damp soil in these areas is subject to soil liquefaction during earthquakes, and most of the major damage close to the bay in the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989 occurred to structures on these areas. The Marina District of San Francisco, hard hit by
28054-485: Was pulled from the water while the ship's boat picked up three more men: Chief Radioman Robert W. Copeland, Boatswain's Mate Second Class Richard E. Deal, and Aviation Metalsmith Second Class Moody E. Erwin. Despite artificial respiration , Copeland never regained consciousness, and he died aboard Phoebus . Although the German sailors spotted four or five other men in the water, they did not know their ship had chanced upon
28223-576: Was released from the evaluation about 10:00 a.m., having achieved a "qualified success" in the initial test with the Scouting Fleet, but the performance could have been better with radio detection finding equipment, and scout planes. As the U.S. naval aviation historian Richard K. Smith wrote in his definitive study, The Airships Akron & Macon: Flying Aircraft Carriers of the United States Navy , with "consideration given to
28392-400: Was too costly. In August 2008, the Navy proposed simply stripping the toxic coating from the hangar and leaving the skeleton after spraying it with a preservative. The Navy claimed that to reclad the structure would cost another $ 15 million and that this was NASA's responsibility. This was regarded as a partial victory by campaigners. In September 2008, NASA indicated that it was still urging
28561-600: Was travelling parallel to Castro Street when it crashed near the corner of California and Oak Streets, narrowly missing an elementary school, according to the Mountain View Register-Leader—the local paper of record at the time. By the end of the 1950s the Navy was looking to consolidate assets as the majority of carrier based aircraft had transitioned to larger jet powered aircraft, needing longer runways. The majority of squadrons based at Moffett transferred to Naval Air Station Miramar when they transitioned to
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