There are comparatively few manufacturers of hangars and the specialist doors that are a fundamental part of the vast majority of major airports around the world. Airside talks to a hangar manufacturer and a dedicated maker of bespoke doors whose portfolio includes the well-known Esavian aircraft hangar doors
Andrew Knox is a sales manager at Rubb Buildings, which designs and manufactures high quality fabric tensioned buildings, including aircraft hangars. He advises that the most recent hangar Rubb installed is to be found at the UK’s Doncaster Sheffield Airport. It is a steel-framed, fabric-clad structure, which measures 40m wide by 46m long and features a sliding door measuring 30m wide by 5m high. Additional modular buildings have been fitted to the right and rear of the building and include a number of offices and amenities.
Rubb was tasked with ensuring the hangar connected effectively to the modular structures and that they were correctly positioned to allow a clear viewing area and access to the hangar.
Rubb has made improvements to its product offering in recent times. “One huge addition to Rubb hangars is our patented Thermohall® cladding product, which has been used in our latest aviation hangar projects for Aerohub at Newquay Cornwall Airport and EasyJet at Gatwick Airport,” Knox explains.
“This is our latest insulated fabric cladding system, which provides many eco-friendly benefits, including reduced energy use and helping support a stable indoor temperature all year round,” he continues. “The technology features high-density, non-combustible glass wool insulation encapsulated within a heavy-duty PVC fabric, which is designed and manufactured in-house to suit site-specific project requirements.”
As the technology changes that a manufacturer such as Rubb can use in its hangars and other structures changes, so too the nature of demand for these facilities evolves. Notes Knox: “As the aviation industry is constantly changing, developing and growing we have seen a dramatic increase for our flexible and relocatable hangar systems.
“Airlines are increasing the overall size of their fleet of aircraft and with that comes additional maintenance operations. This, coupled with constant R&D [research and development] within the industry, has brought the need for quality hangar space that can be manufactured and delivered in short time frames, which is what our types of structure offer.”
Moreover, demands associated with the infrastructure of aviation buildings in terms of requirements for offices and storage facilities within hangars have moved on too. There have also been increasing requests for trying to incorporate different types of aircraft under one roof. What is more, in general, Knox notes: “Every project is different and brings new challenges.
“The nature of the industry is constantly developing and that’s what makes it such an exciting sector to be involved in. Our alternative building solutions have adapted to support this over the years and continue to offer unique benefits to our end users.”
Knox believes that it is the overall quality of Rubb’s products and its willingness to deliver varied clients’ requirements within short time frames that helps the company to stand out, as well as Rubb employees’ enthusiasm and the fact that it custom-designs and manufactures all of its products in the UK.
Of course, also vital to its distinctiveness is Rubb’s expertise in providing dedicated fabric-tensioned buildings. Airlines and maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) businesses are increasingly looking for climate-controlled, affordable and cost-effective MRO environments for their fleets, Knox points out.
“We find many aviation professionals and heads of maintenance saying that this is key to their aircraft running effectively and efficiently. A traditional hangar to accommodate a widebody aircraft could cost in excess of £7 million (US$10 million). Once constructed this hangar is then stationary for its entire lifetime. There is now increasing demand for more affordable, state-of-the-art, fabric hangar facilities, which provide the ideal environment for MRO activities. When investing this amount of money, clients are looking for the best lifetime value from their hangar assets. A more affordable, adaptable, alternative solution to this would be a Rubb MRO hangar, Knox insists.
Specialist know-how and expertise
Just as hangar structures require specific expertise, so too for the doors that offer access and egress to these structures for the aircraft using them. UK-headquartered Jewers Doors manufactures the very popular Esavian aircraft hangar doors. It offers a complete service, including design, manufacture, installation, maintenance, servicing and repair. Operating globally, it has installed doors in markets as far afield as Australia, Singapore, Qatar, Turkey, Iraq and Azerbaijan.
Director Jonathan Jewers talked to Airside about some of the recent projects that the company has concluded (others, he notes, are covered by confidentiality clauses).
The company recently completed the design, manufacture and installation of three major projects that make use of its Type 126 sliding hangar door system. The first was for Oman Air’s new Engineering Center at Muscat International Airport, Oman. The new 62,700 square metre aircraft maintenance hangar is for the use of the national airline of Oman – Oman Air. It is located on the south of the airport facing the New Muscat International Airport, which only opened on 20 March this year.
The hangar is capable of housing two widebody Code F aircraft – including the A380 super jumbo – and Jewers Doors incorporated its own vertical lifting fabric doors above the main horizontal sliding doors in order to accommodate the A380’s tail fins. The main hangar doors measure 192m wide by 21m high.
This is just one of several major contracts Jewers Doors has completed in Oman over the last 35 years, Jonathan Jewers informs.
The second project was for the design, manufacture and installation of the company’s Type 126 sliding hangar door system for Icelandair’s second hangar at Keflavik Airport, Iceland. The new steel-framed hangar, which has a floor area of 13,600 square metres, was built to increase the carrier’s in-house MRO capacity. It can house two B757 aircraft and one B767 aircraft, side by side, in addition to larger aircraft. There will also be space for simultaneously housing three B737 MAX aircraft.
Jewers Doors supplied one set of Type 126 doors comprising six individual door panels totalling 94.8m wide by 18.4m high. A special feature is that the bottom door track system is geothermally heated to prevent icing of the doors.
The third project was again for the design, manufacture and installation of a Type 126 sliding hangar door. This time, the work was for DC Aviation Al-Futtaim Lufthansa at Dubai South Aviation District. The new 7,500 square metre hangar more than doubled the customer’s hangar capacity and significantly increased the size and number of aircraft that can be accommodated.
There is currently a high demand for hangar doors, both military and commercial, with the majority being for new build
The Type 126 door supplied is 55.4m wide by 13.5m high and also incorporates a central tailgate door so that larger aircraft of up to B767-300 can be accommodated. This is the second door that Jewers Doors has supplied to DC Aviation Al Futtaim, with the first door being provided to DC Aviation Al-Futtaim for its hangar on the adjacent plot in 2012.
Jewers Doors has always designed bespoke hangar doors, says Jonathan Jewers, tailoring each to suit the client’s operational requirements, while ensuring that the latest developments in terms of technology, environmental considerations and ease of maintenance are borne in mind. For example, Jewers Doors has replaced its unique printed circuit boards (PCBs) with programmable logic controllers (PLCs) to improve reliability, ease of programming and fault diagnostics.
Moreover, he remarks: “In the very near future, our doors will be capable of remote fault diagnostics. For instance, if a Jewers door develops an electrical fault, the end user can simply use a smartphone to interface with the door that will result in a fault diagnosis message being sent to Jewers Doors. The end user will then be advised of the fault and how to rectify it – which will result in dramatically faster fault rectification.”
Booming market
“There is currently a high demand for hangar doors, both military and commercial, with the majority being for new build,” enthuses Jonathan Jewers. “However, there has been less demand for business aviation hangars and ‘bizjet’ [business jet] MRO in recent months, especially for those aircraft operating out of Saudi Arabia. This has primarily been due to the detention (in the Ritz-Carlton Riyadh Hotel) of several VIPs who own and operate these aircraft.
“Nevertheless, they are expected to be released shortly, which should kick-start this particular market within the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) region,” he adds.
Jonathan Jewers has, like Knox, seen demand evolve in recent years. Customers for new hangars and doors are now seeking cost-effective, functional and efficient designs to complement their operations, whilst ensuring the highest quality, he explains. “Most importantly, end users want to achieve long-term reduced life cycle running costs for their hangars; and they are going ‘green’ and want the best thermal performance from their buildings and doors.
“The days of the elaborate ‘money no object’ hangars seem to have passed, but even so, architects are still achieving fantastic designs for real money,” he observes.
