This small hangar was built by the Austin Company as part of the original United Airport in Burbank, which opened May 30, 1930. It was built for Tom Hamilton and the Hamilton Aero Manufacturing Company, formerly at Grand Central Airport in Glendale. It sat at the north-east corner of the original airport at Hollywood Way and Winona Ave.
Pancho Barnes, Bobbi Trout and 4 other women left from this hangar on ther WAR/Gilmore Oil cross country flight in 1934. ("Just Plane Crazy", Bobbi Trout,page 245)
Amelia Earhart used both this hangar and Paul Mantz's Hangar #1. Katheryn Smith remembered riding on the back of Amelia's motorcycle while traveling around the Burbank airport. They sometimes played tennis inside this hangar between applying coats of 'dope' on the planes.
It was used by Ann and Charles Lindbergh to prepare their Lockheed 'Sirius'. Kathryn Smith remembered setting up office space for them and also having to close the windows because onlookers would bother them while they tried to work or rest.
It was used by Howard Hughes to install the long cross-county wings on his Hughes R-1 Racer. The racer was originally built at 911 Airway in Glendale but he had it at Burbank before the cross country speed dash he made in 1937. He set a record that remained unbeaten by anything, even military aircraft, for 7 years.
It could also be said that this hangar was the southern entrance to the Lockheed B-6 Skunk Works. Winona ran past this hangar and into the Lockheed plant, flight test Building 304. When you see a photo of Amelia Earhart, Roscoe Turner and ??, that was probably in Bldg. 304. It had a hexagonal extension on the second floor that was used for visual control of aircraft in the Lockheed arena, as opposed to the traffic in the civilian airport control.
This original hangar was damaged in the 1992 earthquake. It was accepted as a California Point of Historical Interest in 1994 but it was hurridly demolished within a few weeks.
Most dissappointing was that there was no discussion or interest shown by any local entity except for the Burbank Aviation Museum. While many individuals supported its preservation, no one from the City of Burbank, the Airport Authority or the Lockheed Company made any effort to determine what could be accomplished by way of preservation. Could it have been relocated to a city lot across Hollywood Way or somewhere else on the airport? We'll never know now. It's gone.
Pancho Barnes at Hangar 14
