The Santa Ana Naval Air Station, located in Tustin, south of Los Angeles, was commissioned in 1942, as the southernmost of three blimp bases on the west coast. Each base had a pair of 1,000-foot-long wooden hangars built during WWII, housing squadrons of blimps. Tustin was decommissioned in 1949, like the base in Tillamook, Oregon. Unlike that one, which passed into civilian use soon afterwards, the base at Tustin was taken over by the Marine Corps, which used it as a helicopter training base, until it was closed in 1999. Most of the property has been conveyed to the City of Tustin, and private developers. Housing has already been built, and much of the property’s grounds have been graded. This is Orange County, after all, and development pressure is high. The fate of the blimp hangars themselves is still uncertain, and they are still owned by the Navy. It seems unclear if they are an asset or a liability. In 2013, the North Hangar was being used to build and test a massive airship prototype, being developed for the government by the Worldwide Aeros Corporation. In a windstorm, part of the roof fell in and damaged the craft. The company filed a $65 million suit against the Navy for damages. Meanwhile, the roof has been stabilized by erecting two towers with cables strung between them holding up the damaged part of the roof, for now.