A hangar is a closed building structure to hold aircraft, spacecraft or military
tanks in protective storage. Most hangars are built of metal, but other
materials such as wood and concrete are also used. The word hangar comes from
Middle French hanghart, of Germanic origin, from Frankish *haimgard, from
*haim + gard. Hangars are used for: protection from
the weather, protection from direct sunlight, maintenance, repair,
manufacture, assembly and storage of aircraft on airfields, aircraft carriers
and ships. History
Carl Richard Nyberg used a hangar to store his Flugan in the early 20th
century. In 1909, Louis Bleriot crash-landed on a
northern French farm in Les Baraques and rolled his monoplane into the farmer's
cattle pen. At the time, Bleriot was in a race to be the first man to cross the
English Channel in a heavier-than-air aircraft, so he set up his headquarters
in the unused shed. The Wright brothers stored and repaired
their aircraft in a wooden hangar constructed in 1902 at Kill Devil Hills
in North Carolina for their glider. After completing design and construction
of the Wright Flyer in Ohio, the brothers returned to Kill Devil Hill
only to find their hangar damaged. They repaired the structure and constructed a
new workshop while they waited for the Flyer to be shipped.
In Britain, the earliest aircraft hangars were known as aeroplane sheds
and the oldest surviving examples of these are at Larkhill, Wiltshire. These
were built in 1910 for the Bristol School of Flying are now Grade II*
Listed buildings. British aviation pioneer Alliott Verdon Roe built one of
the first aeroplane sheds in 1907 at Brooklands, Surrey, and today full-size
replicas of this and the 1908 Roe biplane are displayed 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 Bessonneau hangar and the side-opening
aeroplane shed of 1913 - both of which were soon widely adopted by the Royal
Flying Corps. Examples of the latter survive at Farnborough, Filton and
Montrose airfields. During World War I, other standard designs included the RFC
General Service Flight Shed of 1916, the Admiralty F-Type, the General Service
Shed and the Handley Page aeroplane shed.
The largest hangars ever built were those for airships, such as the Goodyear
Airdock measuring 1,175x325x211 feet, and Hangar One measuring 1,133x308x198
feet. Airship hangars
Airship hangars are generally larger than conventional aircraft hangars,
particularly in terms of height. Most early airships used hydrogen gas to
provide them with sufficient buoyancy for flight, so their hangars had to
provide protection from stray sparks in order to prevent the flammable gas from
exploding. Hangars that held multiple craft of this type were at risk from
chain-reaction explosions. For this reason, most hangars for hydrogen-based
airships were built to house only one or two such craft.
During the "Golden Age" of airship travel, mooring masts and sheds were
constructed to build and house airships. The British government built a shed in
Karachi for the R101, the Brazilian government built one in Rio de Janeiro,
the pt:Hangar do Zeppelin for the German Zeppelins, and the US government
constructed Moffett Field, Akron, Ohio, and Lakehurst Naval Air Station,
Lakehurst, New Jersey = Steel construction=
Sheds built for rigid airships survive at Moffett Field, California; Akron,
Ohio; Weeksville, North Carolina; Lakehurst, New Jersey; Base Aérea de
Santa Cruz:pt:Hangar do Zeppelin and Cardington, Bedfordshire. Steel rigid
airship hangars are some of the largest in the world.
Hangar 1, Lakehurst, is located at Naval Air Engineering Station Lakehurst, New
Jersey. The structure was completed in 1921 and is typical of airship hangar
designs of World War I. The site is best known for the Hindenburg disaster; where
on May 6, 1937, the German airship Hindenburg crashed and burned while
landing. Hangar No.1 at Lakehurst was used to construct and store the American
USS Shenandoah. The hangar also provided service and storage for the airships USS
Los Angeles, Akron, Macon, as well as the Graf Zeppelin, and the Hindenburg.
The Goodyear Airdock, is located in Akron, Ohio. 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.
Hangar One at Moffett Federal Field, is located in Mountain View, California.
The structure was completed in 1931. It housed the USS Macon.
= Wood construction= The US Navy established expanded airship
operations during WWII. As part of this ten "lighter-than-air" bases across the
United States were built during World War II as part of the coastal defense
plan; a total of 17 hangars were built. Hangars at these bases are some of the
world's largest freestanding timber structures. Bases with wooden hangars
included: the Naval Air Stations at South Weymouth, Massachusetts;
Lakehurst, New Jersey; Weeksville, North Carolina; Glynco, Georgia; Richmond,
Florida; Houma, Louisiana; Hitchcock, Texas; Tustin, California; Moffett
Field, California; and Tillamook, Oregon.
Of the original seventeen, only seven remain today: Moffett Federal Field,,
California; former Tustin, California, California; Tillamook Air
Museum/Tillamook Airport, Oregon; and Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst/Naval
Support Activity Lakehurst, New Jersey. = Fabric construction=
A hangar for Cargolifter built at Brand-Briesen Airfield. The hangar, is a
technological marvel in itself, is a freestanding steel-dome "barrel-bowl"
construction large enough to fit the Eiffel Tower on its side. The company
went into insolvency, and in June 2003, the company's facilities were sold off
and the airship hangar was converted to a 'tropical paradise'-themed indoor
holiday resort called 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 150 feet wide, 100 feet high and any length. They are able to accommodate
multiple aircraft at once and can be increased in size and even relocated
when necessary. Hangars aboard ships
Many ships - particularly warships - carry aircraft aboard and will often
have hangars for storage and maintenance. Such hangars may be
situated adjacent to the flight deck or underneath the flight deck with
elevators to lift the aircraft. On some vessels where space is at a premium the
hangar and flight deck share the same space, with the hangar stowing away for
flight operations. 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: XXL hangars are built for the largest
aircraft in the world, for example: the Airbus A380, Boeing 747 and the Antonov
225. Such structures are the most complex to erect.
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.
Gallery See also
Cargolifter Hangar Tee Hangar
Bellman hangar Bessonneau hangar
Blister hangar Airship hangar
Military building Underground hangar
Hangar 18 Double cantilever hangar
Loring Air Force Base Arch Hangar, a large hangar constructed for multiple
B-36 Peacemaker aircraft Vehicle Assembly Building, the largest
spacecraft hangar ever to exist Hangar-7
References ^ http:www.tankmuseum.orghistory
^ "A Nine Acre Nest For Dirigibles" Popular Science Monthly, September 1929
^ Building the Navy's Bases in World War II, History of the Bureau of Yards and
Docks and the Civil Engineer Corps, 1940-1946 Volume I - Part II: The
Continental Bases ^ [1]
^ http:www.mallasespaciales.com ^ "September 2014". Sport Avaition: 11.
Francis, Paul ‘British Military Airfield Architecture – From Airships to the Jet
Age’ External links
Information on aircraft hangars and aircraft hangar doors
Marine Corps Air Station, Tustin at the California Military Museum website
Photo history of British hangars Type T2 Hangar Functional Standards
Bellman Hangar Functional Standards