SAVE Hangar B

08/25/2026

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An announced sale to an Utah based air museum is an important step for Hanger B and the Tillamook Air Museum. Details here https://katu.com/news/local/utah-non-profit-buying-tillamook-air-museum-with-plans-to-reopen-facility-port-bay-aircraft-historic-world-war-ii-second-oregon-tillamook-coast

08/24/2026

Follow us and Vintage Aviation Museum for Tillamook Air Museum acquisition, repair, and reopening updates! 🙌💙💫

Send a message to learn more

08/22/2026

A message from The Friends of the Tillamook Air Museum about the exciting update this week:

We strongly support the Port of Tillamook Bay’s decision to transition Hangar B and the Tillamook Air Museum to the nonprofit Vintage Aviation Museum.

This is more than a change in management. It is an opportunity to begin a new chapter for one of Tillamook County’s most important historic landmarks. For months, the future of Hangar B has been uncertain. The agreement with Vintage Aviation Museum provides a path forward—one that combines aviation preservation, museum operations, private fundraising and a renewed commitment to keeping this remarkable World War II structure standing.

Just as importantly, nonprofit leadership can help bring the national attention Hangar B desperately needs. Saving a building of this size and historical significance cannot be accomplished through local fundraising alone. We need foundations, corporations, aviation enthusiasts, preservation organizations and donors from across America to understand what Hangar B is—and what could be lost. Now it is time for Tillamook County to step up.

The Tillamook County Commissioners should work with the new Tillamook Air Museum and help identify tourism, lodging-tax, economic-development and other funding opportunities that can support its success. This should not be viewed simply as money spent preserving an old building. It is an investment in tourism.

A revitalized Tillamook Air Museum can bring more visitors to the Oregon Coast, encourage longer stays, support hotels, restaurants and local businesses, and give travelers another compelling reason to stop in Tillamook.

The Port has taken an important step. Vintage Aviation Museum is stepping forward. FOTAM stands ready to help. Now we need Tillamook County standing beside us.

Together, we can build a stronger museum, attract national support and ensure future generations can walk through those enormous doors and experience Hangar B for themselves.

It’s time to move forward. It’s time to SAVE HANGAR B.

Save Hangar B: Preserving a Historical Legend The Mission Hangar B is mo… Friends of The Tillamook Air Museum needs your support for Help Save Hangar B!

08/20/2026

We got over 500 reactions on our Fair posts last week! Thanks everyone for your support in helping our reach and getting our mission to save, and educate, the world about the Tillamook Air Museum/Hangar B 🙌💙🎉

08/20/2026

Love! Thank you for the wonderful writeup and appreciation for Oregon and WWII history, Oregon USA. 🫶

During World War II, the Navy needed somewhere on the Oregon coast to house blimps hunting for Japanese submarines, so in 1943 they built two of the largest wooden hangars ever constructed at Naval Air Station Tillamook ✈️ Hangar B alone cost just over three million dollars and became home to Blimp Squadron ZP-33, which flew K-class airships on anti-submarine patrol and convoy es**rt duty along the Pacific coast from 1943 to 1945, each blimp stretching over 200 feet long.

The hangar is often called the largest clear span wooden structure in the world, roughly 300 feet wide and well over a thousand feet long, big enough that a full size aircraft could sit inside with room to spare. Hangar A, its twin, burned down in 1992 while being used to store hay. Hangar B survived and for decades held the Tillamook Air Museum, filling the cavernous space with vintage aircraft under the same wooden trusses that once sheltered Navy airships.

A severe windstorm in December 2025 tore open a large section of Hangar B's roof, and as of this year the Port of Tillamook Bay has voted against a full structural repair given the enormous cost, so the museum remains closed while its future is worked out 🏗️ Whatever comes next, the building has already outlasted its original 1948 decommissioning by more than seventy five years.

A single K class blimp inside this hangar was longer than two thirds of a football field. Did you know Oregon had its own blimp base during World War II, or is this brand new to you?

08/14/2026

Around this same time last August, hundreds of visitors flooded the...

08/08/2026

Hey Mom, we won a Blue Ribbon at The Tillamook County Fair! 🙌

Thank ya’ll so much for your support 💙💫