Mystery Luftwaffe hangar structure

[Bonhoff]

It was a project to see if people would wonder what it was some 80 years later....

 

You're welcome.

 

IanJ 

[Black Knight]

19 minutes ago, GiampieroSilvestri said:

I sent a request to the editor of German magazine Jet&Prop if he or one of his authors know what the construction could be.

Spoil Sport !

Its not cricket old boy to call on some experts

 

 

 

[alt-92]

25 minutes ago, Max Headroom said:

Is there/was there a hard standing next to it leading to a taxiway or whatever?

Yes, see the aerial photography shots  And it wasn't the only such structure. 

[Alex Gordon]

Yet another revised photo with bits of the recce image added

 

Edited February 8 by Alex Gordon

[Rob de Bie]

1 hour ago, GiampieroSilvestri said:

I sent a request to the editor of German magazine Jet&Prop if he or one of his authors know what the construction could be.

 

Saluti

 

Giampiero

Thanks! I hope they don't mind this kind of questions. But maybe they can make a magazine article out of it 🙂

 

Rob

Edited August 10, 2021 by Rob de Bie

[Icedtea]

16 hours ago, JWM said:

On above photo the upper surface does not look flat, for me it is concave (do you see it also?) what makes whole thing even more puzzling. The height of concrete spars suggests that expected force acting from top was much more than just a roof. The iron  rods coming out to sides from spar suggest that something was expected to be attached here. The right legs re shorter, maybe it is a piece of starting ramp for some Wuderfaffe machine, of course  elusive and hidden project?

OP posted that there had been an attempted demolition but the 2 "legs" had simply dropped onto the ground thus accounting for the apparent "tilt"

Edited August 11, 2021 by Icedtea
duplication of text

[GiampieroSilvestri]

If Rob de Bie can give his approval here.The editor of Jet&Prop answered that he can ask the readers what the "hangar" is in the next number of the magazine.

 

Thank you very much

 

Saluti

 

Giampiero

Edited August 11, 2021 by GiampieroSilvestri

[Bozothenutter]

3 hours ago, GiampieroSilvestri said:

If Rob de Bie can give his approval here.The editor of Jet&Prop answered that he can ask the readers what the "hangar" is in the next number of the magazine.

 

Thank you very much

 

Saluti

 

Giampiero

Ask them for pics of the same in other locations as well!

Germans loved standardisation and I cannot find pics of it anywhere.

[Rob de Bie]

6 hours ago, GiampieroSilvestri said:

If Rob de Bie can give his approval here.The editor of Jet&Prop answered that he can ask the readers what the "hangar" is in the next number of the magazine.

 

Giampiero, thanks for arranging this, sounds like good fun! Should I send them a summary, or can they find what they want in this thread?

 

Rob

Edited August 11, 2021 by Rob de Bie

[Rob de Bie]

2 hours ago, Bozothenutter said:

Ask them for pics of the same in other locations as well!

Germans loved standardisation and I cannot find pics of it anywhere.

 

I too would expect that this type of construction was used elsewhere. Interesting!

 

Rob

[GiampieroSilvestri]

I have sent two pictures of the "hangar" posted here with the mail.He knows what you are searching and asks if he can publish your question with the pictures in the next issue of Jet&Prop.

 

Saluti

 

Giampiero

[Jochen Barett]

23 hours ago, Rob de Bie said:

At last I found a picture (here) of a Luftwaffe hangar that would fit roughly. It has a sag too, or am I seeing things?

 

 

Rob

 

That does look like an attempt to mimic a local style of building. There are fake windows painted onto the front wall and there are nice Dachgauben.

 

The lower edge of the roof does look curved while the sliding doors' rail does look straight (outruling the excuse "distortion of the camera's lens") - making it look "less German" and "less new" with that curve 😉

[Rob de Bie]

5 hours ago, GiampieroSilvestri said:

I have sent two pictures of the "hangar" posted here with the mail.He knows what you are searching and asks if he can publish your question with the pictures in the next issue of Jet&Prop.

 

Sure! If he wants to communicate directly: I'm robdebie xs4all nl

 

Rob

[ksc]

I remember seeing this structure back in the early 1980s when we were visiting the Netherlands! We were staying with friends in Venhorst and one day our host took us out for a drive. When I saw it I asked if we could stop so I could take pictures. At that time I seem to remember the field between the road and the structure was all plowed up, like a farmer's field. I will see if I can find the photos but I have moved so many times in the last 40 years I've lost track of where things are 😕

[Rob de Bie]

On 8/16/2021 at 12:41 AM, ksc said:

I remember seeing this structure back in the early 1980s when we were visiting the Netherlands! We were staying with friends in Venhorst and one day our host took us out for a drive. When I saw it I asked if we could stop so I could take pictures. At that time I seem to remember the field between the road and the structure was all plowed up, like a farmer's field. I will see if I can find the photos but I have moved so many times in the last 40 years I've lost track of where things are 😕

If I remember correctly, the skeleton hangar used to be right next to the airbase's fence, with a farmer's field between the fence and the road. At some point the fence was moved say 50 meters towards the public road, maybe during the years when peace activists used to enter the base. The extra space allowed the construction of a perimeter road inside the fence, so patrols could continuously check the fence. Additional trees were planted too, obscuring the sight of the skeleton hangar, except for a public viewing point that I described earlier.

Rob

 

 

[Rob de Bie]

I found an additional photo of the skeleton hangar, from around 1947. The still-existing hangar is seen on the left, and on the right another one is visible, in a better condition no less. I had missed the latter on my study of the aerial photos, so back to the drawing board for that. The buildings in the middle are post-war.

 

 

Rob

[Alex Gordon]

Is this another one in the green rectangle?

 

 

Edited to add the recce photo from earlier.

 

 

Further edited to add that brains here didn't read the last post properly before posting .

Edited February 8 by Alex Gordon

[Rob de Bie]

36 minutes ago, Alex Gordon said:

Is this another one in the green rectangle?

 

Edited to add the recce photo from earlier.

 

Further edited to add that brains here didn't read the last post properly before posting .

 

Yep, that's how I see it too.

 

The 'new' one looks to me to have a non-sagged roof, by the way.

 

Rob

[stevehnz]

I'm wondering if these structures were disguised hangers during the war, were they stripped for building materials during the time of reconstruction postwar? 

[alt-92]

12 hours ago, stevehnz said:

were they stripped for building materials during the time of reconstruction postwar? 

Yes  a large part of the remaining runway paving and bricks were used to rebuild the town square in nearby Uden. 

[MDriskill]

Old architect here...fascinating thread! Don't have much to add except to say the depth of the concrete beams at the front and rear is not far out of line considering how far they span. The last photos showing two similar structures, hint the "sagged" one has had significant failure of concrete and rebar at the bottoms of the long beams! I might hesitate to stand under it, LOL. 

 

It makes sense that there were probably gantry cranes above; the structure looks tall enough to have two "layers" of aircraft in it. There might have been a double layer of rails beneath the stout internal cross-beams in your very first photo, i.e. so a crane could move along both the long and short dimensions to any point in the space. Such dynamic loads up high may be another reason the beams are so deep. Maybe the beams also anchored crane rails, requiring the depth to remain across the short ends.

 

In plan, I'd guess the main enclosure was kept clear for moving aircraft about, and the lower structure at the "stem of the T" was parts storage, utility rooms, etc.

 

One last trivial point, the bent metal items in one of the previous color photos are not rebar, but some sort of pipe or conduit (edit: not correct! See following.)

Edited August 21, 2021 by MDriskill

[Rob de Bie]

1 hour ago, MDriskill said:

Old architect here...fascinating thread! Don't have much to add except to say the depth of the concrete beams at the front and rear is not far out of line considering how far they span. The last photos showing two similar structures hint the "bowed" one has had significant failure of concrete and rebar at the bottoms of the long beams! I might hesitate to stand under it, LOL. 

[snip]

One last trivial point, the bent metal items in one of the previous color photos are not rebar, but some sort of pipe or conduit.

 

Thanks for your comments! I'm glad you touched the subject of the rebar in the pillars. When I saw it up-close I couldn't believe it either. But it really is solid steel rod, but much thicker than current rebar. From five-year old memory, it was 25 to 30 mm diameter, completely smooth. The rebar in the roof beams (third photo) looked more like current rebar, but if you look closely you can also see some of that large diameter rebar. Maybe this was state of the art during the war?

 

 

 

 

Rob

 

[MDriskill]

Thanks - I stand corrected! On the earlier, smaller version of the photo, I "read" the dark ends of the rods as hollow.

 

I know nothing of wartime German construction practices, but I believe smooth rebar was more commonly used in the past. Large rods clustered in a column like that would certainly increase resistance to compressive loads.

 

The most interesting aspect of this structure might have been the scaffolding and form work for the concrete.

Edited August 21, 2021 by MDriskill

[Alex Gordon]

@MDriskill you might find this PDF https://www.ejournals.eu/pliki/art/10820/ of interest.While it is mainly concerned with bunkers it gives a good idea of the amount of steel that was incorporated into a typical German project.

[MDriskill]

Thanks for that! Very interesting read.

 

One of the points made is that smooth rebar is better at stretching without breaking - which we may be seeing proof of in the "sagged" structure here.