Hangar has its own weather system

[snopes]

Comment: I heard that the 777 hangar at the Everett Boeing facility is so
large it has its own weather system (clouds, rain, etc). Is this true? And
if so, to what extent does the weather system produce weather?

[Psihala]

This same kind of thing was said to be common inside of the huge airship hangers of the 20's and 30's. Even today, there are stories of it raining inside the Goodyear Blimp hanger in Akron, Ohio under the right conditions. The Roadside America site does have this notation:

Nov. 2004 - Tom Solinski writes: "In a recently published biograpy of Karl Arnstien -- the man behind the design of the Airships Akron and Macon and the Air Dock created to build and house them -- Karl points out that under the right conditions it got very humid, to the point of misting, but never raining in the Dock. A rumor that has been out of proportion since 1929."

There's also this from a geocities site on the Naval Air Station at Lakehurst, NJ:

The most impressive sight when you arrive at the main gate on the base is Hangar 1 dwarfing the nearby two story buildings. The giant hangar is 200 feet high, 350 feet wide, and 808 feet long. It is so huge that occasionally it rained inside the hangar. This happened when the huge doors opened and the humid air flowed into the cool interior and condensed, making small droplets of "rain". Some of the old timers sometimes tried to convince new arrivals that there were even thunderstorms inside the hangar. I think they over exaggerated the point.

~Psihala
(*Will check her dirigible history books for more info when she gets home.)

[songs78]

There is no 777 specific hangar. 747s, 767s and 777s are built at the same facility.

Here is a today show article about it.

Day one: Seattle
As you saw this morning, Seattle has a long history as a center of aviation, and Boeing's production site in Everett is so massive that the giant hangar where Matt stood even has its own weather systems. (It can sometimes rain inside the hangar!)

It's the world's largest building by volume.

Boeing Co.'s Everett manufacturing plant, which encloses 472 million cubic feet of space and covers more than 98 acres

kind of related, but not really

http://www.codeonemagazine.com/archi...ing/index.html

Air Force’s McKinley Climatic Laboratory in florida at eglin. a giant hanger with its own man made weather system used for testing extreme weather on new equipment

[Singing in the Drizzle]

Have work for over 13 years at Boeing. I have never seen are heard about it raining in any of the hangers.

I can tell you they are very large. I was in one of the 747 assembly line hanger bays at was almost empty. I say almost empty, because after being there for a hour. I finaly noticed the one 747 parked in the corner. You would think that they would be big enough not over look one in side a building.

[UEL]

In my experience, the only "rain" I have seen inside the hangar is the condensation dripping from the beams and rafters in humid weather. I would not call it a weather phenomenon.

Originally Posted by UEL

In my experience, the only "rain" I have seen inside the hangar is the condensation dripping from the beams and rafters in humid weather. I would not call it a weather phenomenon.

Seemingly no more of a weather phenomenon than when condensation appears on the outside of a soda can or the inside of a window.

I live in WIchita Kansas, which is home to boeing, spirit aerosystems, raytheon, bombardiar, cessna, and a few other assembly plants. I used to work in plant 4 for raytheon doing final assembly. The plant was huge, the only weather ever experienced inside was when it rained so bad and the water came in due to bad siding job and flooded the floor

[Eddylizard]

I worked in a badly designed cold store some years ago. If we opened all the loading bay doors on a humid day, fog would form inside the store, and once or twice I saw ice crystals precipatate out of it when the doors had been shut.

I wouldn't call it a weather system though.

[Lainie]

Driving by the Akron airdock is quite an experience. It's located fairly close to the road (S.R. 224), and it is very, very, big.