A final salute to Moffett Field’s historic Hangar 3

For decades, it moored the aircraft that kept us safe, but it's beyond repair

By LISA KRIEGER | lkrieger@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group
PUBLISHED: June 8, 2024 at 6:00 a.m. | UPDATED: June 10, 2024 at 4:51 a.m.

A place that is no longer wanted by the nation it helped protect, Hangar 3 is being demolished.

There was an era when the cavernous structure, one of three hangars at Moffett Field between Mountain View and Sunnyvale, had the attention it deserved. Inside its historic wooden walls, generations of proud servicemembers moored and maintained the aircraft that defended us from predators.

But time has overtaken Hangar 3. Built during World War II, the blimp hangar has long stood idle and empty. Decaying and dangerous, it would cost a fortune to fix.

Its death has been years in the planning, but now it is time. Demolition is systematic and controlled, slicing the building from north to south. A quicker strategy, using explosives, could stress adjacent structures. It will be gone by next March.

“There is a deep sense of loss,” said Jonathan Ikan, cultural resources manager at NASA Ames Research Center, which owns and operates Moffett Field. “It has had, and will always have, an everlasting mark on our history.”

Hangar 3 and its two siblings have been a famed part of the Peninsula’s landscape, punctuating the eastern horizon like giant gray anvils. Hangar 1 is easily viewed from Highway 101; Hangars 2 and 3, more distant, are best seen from the public Golf Club at Moffett Field...


Complete article with lots of nice photos. At the end is a link to a good 15-minute video about Moffett Field.

https://www.siliconvalley.com/...3-as-its-demolished/

It's been in various states of disrepair since at least the mid-'90s. It's about time we faced reality.

While not as prominent as Hanger-1, which just got a refurbishment and new skin, those hangers were problematic for quite awhile and only good for indoor events and drone racing.
CA NG 129th Rescue Wing used them for a bit early-on but it became obvious they needed more modern, useful hangers.

I wonder if had been used in any movies ?

I know a gentleman who is now well over 90 and in a nursing facility, but was an eminent aerospace engineer at NASA's Ames Laboratory at Moffett Field. A pioneer in hypersonic flight among other things.

Here is a link to an interview with him as part of the oral history of the Ames lab.
Link

I remember driving by those hangers every time we were going to the PX in the 70's. I was just a kid and thought they were huge but didn't really know what they were for then.

Drove past them for years when I worked in man view and gre up in the south bay. Mg best friends dad growing up retired as an E9 ordnance chief on P3 crews out of moffett his retirement ceremony was in one of those hangars can’t remember if this one of the other ones.