Hangar

Hangar
	A cutaway diagram of a hangar

A hangar is a closed structure to hold aircraft or spacecraft 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 ("enclosure near a house"), of Germanic origin, from Frankish *haimgard ("home-enclosure", "fence around a group of houses"), from *haim ("home, village, hamlet") + gard ("yard").

Hangars are used for: protection from weather, protection from direct sunlight, maintenance, repair, manufacture, assembly and storage of aircraft on airfields, aircraft carriers and ships.

[edit] History

Carl Richard Nybergs hangar for Flugan from 1908, Täcka udden in Lidingö, Sweden
Foto: Bengt Oberger

The Wright Flyer outside the aircraft's makeshift hangar

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 (between Sangatte and Calais) 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 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.

One of the largest hangars built was for the former Soviet Air Force. Another large hangar is the Goodyear Airdock measuring 1,175x325x211 feet^[1], Hangar One (Mountain View, California) measuring 1,133x308x198 feet, and the Filton Aerodrome in Bristol, England, measuring 1,155x115x263 feet.^{[citation needed]}

Light aircraft hangars at Kemble Airport, Gloucestershire, England

[edit] Airship Hangars

Airship hangar (also referred to as "airship sheds") 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 sized to house only one or two such craft.

During the "Golden Age" of airship travel (starting in 1900), 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 pt:Hangar do Zeppelin for the German Zeppelins, and the US government built Moffett Field, Akron, Ohio, and Lakehurst Naval Air Station, Lakehurst, NJ

[edit] Steel Construction

Sheds built for rigid airships survive at Moffett Field, CA, Akron, OH, Lakehurst, NJ, Base Aérea de Santa Cruz (Rio de Janeiro)pt:Hangar do Zeppelin, and Cardington, Bedfordshire. Steel rigid airship hangars are the some of the largest hangars in the world.

Hangar 1, Lakehurst, is located at Lakehurst Naval Air Station, NJ. 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 Hindenburg crashed and burned while landing. Hangar No.1 at Lakehurst was used to construct the USS Shenandoah (ZR-1). The hangar also provided service and storage for the airships USS Shenandoah (ZR-1), USS Los Angeles (ZR-3), USS Akron (ZRS-4), USS Macon (ZRS-5), Graf Zeppelin (LZ 130), and Hindenburg (LZ 129).

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 (ZRS-4) and its sister ship the USS Macon (ZRS-5).

Hangar One, Moffett Field, is located in Mountain View, CA. The structure was completed in 1931. Hangar One housed the USS Macon (ZRS-5).

[edit] Wood Construction

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

The US Navy established ten "lighter-than-air" (LTA) bases across the United States during World War II as part of the coastal defense plan, with a total of 17 hangars built. Hangars^[2] at these bases are some of the world's largest freestanding wood structures. Bases with wooden hangars included: (1) NAS South Weymouth, (2) NAS Lakehurst, (1) NAS Weeksville, (2) NAS Glynco, (3) NAS Richmond, (1) NAS Houma, (1) NAS Hitchcock, (2) NAS Santa Ana, (2) NAS Moffett Field, and (2) NAS Tillamook. Of the original seventeen, only seven remain today: (2) Moffett Field, CA; (2) Tustin, California; (1) Tillamook, Oregon; and (2) Lakehurst, NJ.^[3]

[edit] Fabric Construction

An alternative to the 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.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] 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 (as is common on cruisers, destroyers and frigates) or underneath the flight deck with elevators to lift the aircraft (as is common on aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships). 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.

[edit] Structures and sizes

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

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

The XXL hangars are built for the biggest aircraft in the world^[4]: Airbus A380, Boeing 747, etc. These size hangars are the most complex to build. An example of this can be seen here: