Goodyear Airdock – an hangar for the construction and storage of airships in Akron. At the time of its completion in 1929, it was the largest building in the world without internal supports. The building has a unique shape described as "the half of a silk cocoon, sliced along the length." Its length is 1,175 feet (358 m), width – 325 feet (99 m), and height – 211 feet (64 m). The structure is supported by 13 steel arches. Inside the hangar, there are 364,000 square feet (34,000 m²) of unused space, more than 8 football fields laid side by side. The volume of the hangar is 55 million cubic feet (about 1.5 million cubic meters). To the northeast are the control tower and radio antenna. At each end of the building, there are two enormous semi-spherical doors weighing 600 tons (544,000 kg) each. The doors are secured with hollow forged pins 17 inches (43 cm) in diameter and six feet (1.8 m) long. The doors move on 40 wheels along specially designed curved railway tracks, each powered by a separate power unit, allowing the doors to be opened in about 5 minutes.
The dimensions of the hangar are so large that temperature fluctuations inside can significantly differ from external conditions. To compensate for these changes, which could cause structural damage, a series of 12 windows at a height of 100 feet (30 m) from the ground were installed. The building is also mounted on rollers to allow the expansion or contraction of the structure due to temperature changes. During high humidity, sharp temperature changes inside the hangar cause condensation that falls in the form of fog, creating the illusion of rain, according to the designer.
In 1929, Goodyear Zeppelin Corporation, later known as Goodyear Aerospace, was seeking a building for constructing "lighter-than-air" vessels (later known as airships). The company commissioned the project from Karl Arnstein of Akron, whose design was inspired by drawings of the first aerodynamically designed hangar built in 1913 in Dresden, Germany. Construction lasted from April 20 to November 25, 1929, costing $2.2 million (equivalent to $30.74 million in 2023). The first airships constructed and launched from the airfield were the USS Akron in 1931 and its sister ship USS Macon.
When World War II began, there was an urgent need for enclosed production areas, and the hangar was used for building airships. The last airship built at the airfield was the ZPG-3W U.S. Navy in 1960. After that, the building served as a photographic unit for Goodyear Aerospace. In 1980, the Goodyear Airdock was recognized as a Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers.
The airfield also hosted the United Way of Summit County kickoff rally in 1986, attended by over 350,000 people. In 1992, Bill Clinton spoke here during his campaign. As of 2021, California-based company LTA Research and Exploration, together with the University of Akron, plans to use the airfield for developing electric airships.
The airfield is not open to the public, but it can be seen by those traveling along US Route 224 east of downtown Akron.
Current information:
Location: S side of the Akron Fulton International Airport, Akron, Ohio
