Gavin Fine Art & Design

Mammoth Structures

Tustin Marine Corps Air Station was first commissioned in 1942 as a base for the Navy's LTA (Lighter Than Air) Blimps.

The two blimp hangars, built at the 1942 cost of $2.5 million each, were the largest unsupported wooden structures in the world. Each hangar stood 18 stories tall — 1,088 feet long, 178 feet high, and 297 feet wide. The hangars were so large that they generate their own weather system inside the buildings.

Also see Tom West's photograph of the Lit Blimp Hangars

In 1949, the Air Station was decommissioned for two years and then recommissioned as Santa Ana Marine Corps Air Facility in 1951 in response to the Korean conflict. The base was again renamed in 1985 to Tustin Marine Corps Air Station. In its latter years, it was used for the training of helicopter squadrons.

In 1999, the base was closed as a result of the Base Realignment and Closure Act of 1991. One of the hangars was named a National Historical Landmark and will be preserved. The other is about be torn down in deference to fiscal and commercial presssures.