The three airship hangars to be built at NAS Richmond were designed by naval engineer Arsham Amirikian, who designed a total of 15, nearly identical hangars for bases along both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

Each of the three hangars were 157 feet (47,9 m) high to the bottom of the truss arch, 257 feet (78,3 m) wide to the inside of the truss span, and 297 feet (90,5 m) wide on the outside. Each hangar was 1088 feet (404,8 m) long and covered an area of about 7 acres (2,8 hectares). The doors at each end of each hangar were composed of 6 panels, rolling on steel railroad tracks imbedded in the concrete apron. Each door panel was 120 feet (36,6 m) high and 3.5 feet (1,2 m) thick and are considered the largest single door panels ever designed and built.

The hangars were built of structural grade wooden timbers (mostly Douglas fir) to conserve steel needed for the war effort. By using wood, each hangar saved over 4,000 tons (3,880 metric tons) of much needed steel which went to building tanks, airplanes, etc. All fabrication was done in shops. Mill order lists, shop drawings, template work, and pre-cutting was accomplished and the finished pieces of the "hanger kit" were sent to treatment plants to be made fire resistant.

The hangar trusses were of a revolutionary type of construction. Each hangar consisted of 51, timber, hingeless, arch trusses on 20 foot (6,1 m) centers. To build the trusses, a traveling scaffold was constructed on top of 18 standard railroad flat cars. 3 cars on each of 6 rails running the length of each hangar. The scaffold consisted of a large, step-tabled platform, with the difference between platform elevations corresponding to the lengths of the trusses which could be easily handled. The scaffold was roughly the size of a 14 story building 120' by 190' (36,6 m by 57,9 m).

The first 80' (24,4 m) section of trusses were assembled on the ground and lifted into place. Next, 40' (12,2 m) sections for each side, were assembled on the first level of the platform and hoisted into place with booms and tackle mounted on the scaffold. Likewise, the next two sections were assembled in the same way. Finally, the crown or center piece was assembled on the top of the platform and hoisted into place with gin-pole derricks. In the early stages of construction, workers built 1.5 arch bays per day. With experience, the number climbed to 2.75 per day!

Each hangar required:

• 2,719,000 board feet of lumber (252.603,4 square meters) A board foot is a unit of lumber measure, one foot square and one inch thick. (The webmaster is not sure of the metric equivalent of a board foot and shows the area in square meters of lumber 2,5 cm thick.)
• 79.5 tons (72,1 metric tons) of bolts and washers.
• 30.5 tons (27,6 metric tons) of miscellaneous ring connectors.
• 33 tons (29,9 metric tons) of miscellaneous structural steel.

Each scaffold was constructed of 375,000 board feet (34.838,64 square meters) of lumber and 30 tons (27,1 metric tons) of steel.

Rafters were added after all of the trusses were in place. The entire surface was then covered with tongue and groove sheathing from the outside. The roof covering covered an area of approximately 10 acres (4,1 hectares). After the sheathing was in place, a composition roofing paper was applied over a tacked, felt slip sheet. Men installing the roofing were suspended from staging platforms, working from bottom to top.

The huge doors at each end of the hangars were built from structural steel members and covered in fire resistant plywood. The doors "tucked" into the enormous concrete towers (one of which is still on the Gold Coast Railroad/NAS Richmond property). The doors rolled on carriages supported by steel rails on the bottom and steel door tracks on top. The upper track was supported by a box beam girder spanning the door opening.

Of course, the last question everyone asks... each hangar cost approximately $2,500,000.00 in 1942 dollars. If you built these hangars today, in 2002, each one would cost $27,684,049.00!

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