Hangar

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A cutaway diagram of a hangar
An outside view of a hangar in a Royal Air Force base

A hangar is a building or structure designed to hold aircraft or spacecraft. Hangars are built of metal, wood, or concrete. The word hangar comes from Middle French hanghart ("enclosure near a house"), of Germanic origin, from Frankish *haimgard ("home-enclosure", "fence around a group of houses"), from *haim ("home, village, hamlet") and gard ("yard"). The term, gard, comes from the Old Norse garðr ("enclosure, garden").

Hangars are used for protection from the weather, direct sunlight and for maintenance, repair, manufacture, assembly and storage of aircraft.

History

The Wright Flyer outside the aircraft's makeshift hangar

The

glider. After completing design and construction of the Wright Flyer in Ohio
, the brothers returned to Kill Devil Hills only to find their hangar damaged. They repaired the structure and constructed a new workshop while they waited for the Flyer to be shipped.

Carl Richard Nyberg's hangar for his Flugan (fly) from 1908, Täcka udden in Lidingö, Sweden

Listed buildings. British aviation pioneer Alliott Verdon Roe built one of the first aeroplane sheds in 1907 at Brooklands, Surrey and full-size replicas of this and the 1908 Roe biplane are on display at Brooklands Museum
.

As aviation became established in Britain before World War I, standard designs of hangar gradually appeared with military types too such as the

Farnborough, Filton and Montrose airfields. During World War I, other standard designs included the RFC General Service Flight Shed and the Admiralty F-Type of 1916, the General Service Shed (featuring the characteristic Belfast-truss roof and built-in various sizes) and the Handley Page
aeroplane shed (1918).

Construction

Steel construction

Sheds built for rigid airships survive at

in Brazil; and Cardington, Bedfordshire. Steel rigid airship hangars are some of the largest in the world.

Hangar 1, Lakehurst, is located at

Akron, Macon, as well as the Graf Zeppelin
and the Hindenburg.

The largest hangars ever built include the

Hangar One (Mountain View, California) measuring 1,133 ft × 308 ft × 198 ft (345 m × 94 m × 60 m). The Goodyear Airdock
, is in Akron, Ohio and the structure was completed on November 25, 1929. The Airdock was used for the construction of the USS Akron and her sister ship, the USS Macon.

Mountain View
, California. The structure was completed in 1931. It housed the USS Macon.

Wood construction

Six helium-filled blimps stored in one of the two hangars at the former US Marine Corps Air Station Tustin

The

Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst/Naval Support Activity Lakehurst (former NAS Lakehurst), New Jersey (2).[3]

Fabric construction

A hangar for Cargolifter was built at

Tropical Islands
, which opened in 2004.

An alternative to the fixed hangar is a portable shelter that can be used for aircraft storage and maintenance. Portable fabric structures can be built up to 215 ft (66 m) wide, 100 ft (30 m) high and any length. They are able to accommodate several aircraft and can be increased in size and even relocated when necessary.[citation needed]

Structures and sizes

Hangars need special structures to be built. The width of the doors have to be large; this includes the aircraft entrance. The bigger the aircraft to be introduced, the more complex a structure is needed. According to the span of the hangar, sizes can be classified thus:

Size Span (meters)
S Less than 30 m
M 30–60 m
L 60–90 m
XL 90–120 m
XXL More than 120 m

XXL hangars are built for the largest aircraft in the world like the Airbus A380, Boeing 747 and the Antonov 225, which are the most complex to erect.[4]

Regulation

Hangars are usually regulated by the building codes in the countries and jurisdictions and airports where they reside. In August 2014, the American FAA proposed legislation of how a hangar can be used on airfields that receive government funding. The definition of allowed activities included final assembly of aircraft.[5]

Examples

Airship hangars

Lakehurst Naval Air Station, Lakehurst, New Jersey
.

Hangars aboard ships

The helicopter hangar of an Akizuki-class destroyer.

Many warships carry aircraft and will often have hangars for storage and maintenance. Such hangars may be situated adjacent to the flight deck on cruisers, destroyers and frigates or underneath the flight deck with elevators to lift the aircraft on aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships. On some vessels where space is short the hangar and flight deck share the same space, with the hangar stowing away for flight operations.

Hangar homes

Hangar homes at Independence State Airport

A hangar home[citation needed] is a residence that includes a hangar attached or integrated into the house, where the owner is able to park their privately owned aircraft. Hangar Homes are usually found in residential airparks.

Gallery

See also

References

  1. ISSN 0161-7370
    .
  2. ^ Building the Navy's Bases in World War II, History of the Bureau of Yards and Docks and the Civil Engineer Corps, 1940-1946. Vol. Part II: The Continental Bases. Archived from the original on 24 September 2012 – via Navy Department Library.
  3. ^ "Hangar 1". Navair Lakehurst. Archived from the original on 24 September 2012. Retrieved 7 October 2016.
  4. ^ "Listado de referencias". Mallas Espaciales (in Spanish). Asteca Estructurales Espaciales. Archived from the original on 14 July 2011. Retrieved 5 April 2019.
  5. ^ "FAA issues draft Hangar Use Policy". Sport Aviation: 11. September 2014.

Further reading

Francis, Paul (1996) ‘British Military Airfield Architecture – From Airships to the Jet Age’ (Patrick Stephens Ltd, Sparkford, Somerset,

)

External links

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