Building an ultralight hangar.

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Building an Ultralight Hangar

By B. J. Moore, ASC BFI – The Flyin Moose, Maxair Drifter MU532, Milford, Utah 

General Thoughts

Building a hangar for your ultralight is the greatest investment you can make for the life and well being of your plane. UL’s that are not hangared show significant weathering after only one season, whereas those kept behind doors in a relatively “tight” sun-proof hangar can look like new even after decades of flying. Hangaring can be seen as a safety matter, as sun and weathering may inflict an unnoticeable problem with your plane that may not keep you flying on some fateful day. 

We that fly ultralight aircraft fly them because they are fun and affordable. If the affordable isn’t important to you, then this article won’t make much sense. However, if you want a quality hangar, but you don’t want to have to break the bank to build one, read on. 

So often someone asks me how much that “thing” cost me. We like to brag and say, “somewhere around ten grand.” They didn’t ask how much it costs to own it and fly it! Most often the major cost of flying is not the fuel cost, or even the purchase price of the plane, but the cost of hangaring, often overlooked is not even thought of by fledglings just getting into the sport. 

This is why the Kolb, Kiftox, Avid, Fisher, Trikes, PPC’s, gyrocopters, and other portable, or folding wing type ultralight aircraft appeal to so many. Folding wing 3-axis designs are not the rule, but rather the exception. Most of the 3-axis designs are not portable. Many people get tired of folding and unfolding. Hangar ownership solves these issues. 

Those thinking about building an affordable hangar have first to determine what your “angles” are. If you don’t have an angle, a quality hangar will cost you more than those that have an angle. Figure the cost of materials times 2. 

What do I mean by “angle?” First consider the common angle that is required for anyone wanting to build an affordable hangar. You will have to be some sort of handyman and have some building skills. If you are a welder, mechanic, or have ever built a home, you likely possess the skills to move forward into affordable hangar building. If you will have to hire a contractor, the cost of hangar building will at least double. We are talking the cost of materials here, not even considering the costs of labor, beer, and gas.  

What were my angles? I found a dozen new but weathered 60’ span wood trusses that were just laying there. I got em for the cost of hauling them off. I also found a municipal airport in a small town 30 miles away from home that had a lease for UL’s that was $60 annually with no requirement for insurance. Nowadays, in most cases, you will need a Building Permit. I am an Engineer and could draw and stamp my plans. Everything else came out of the pocketbook. What are some other angles? 

My original instructor built a hangar for his Drifter that only cost him $1,000. He found an old grocery store that was going out of business that was built of sheet metal and beam construction. He salvaged 95% of the materials he needed to build from this store that was about to be demolished. 

You could own or can rent from a friend a cheap parcel of land with room for a 1,000 ft. airstrip that you will have to grade in yourself. Remember, if you go this route, runway maintenance is something that will require constant attention. Perhaps you have access to some free concrete, or know of a bundle of used lumber that will come in handy. Maybe there is a UL friendly airpark nearby that has a reasonable lease for those wanting to build their own hangar. There are lots of angles. You will have to seek and find what your angles are. 

From this point forward, let’s focus on my own hangar building experience. 

Second Class Aircitizens

Early on, when I first started taking flying lessons, I had found the trusses and was decided on building my own hangar. I approached the Milford City Municipal Airport manager. She said to me “we don’t want any ultralights around here.” I was taken back by this statement and decided to query the City Council about the matter. I could not convince the City Council that I was going to be flying the plane as an Ultralight Trainer and that it was perfectly legal to do so. I had my plane and was ready to purchase it, but nowhere to hangar it. I knew the thing with the City was not going to be resolved quickly. I found an old farmer with large hay shed. He wasn’t farming his land anymore, and the hay shed would provide the shade my plane needed. He consented to let me grade out a 900 foot long runway on his property. The cost of this to me was $65 per month. I called this arrangement my “hay”ngar.  This worked for me for the first year of flying, but I became somewhat disenchanted with it. The runway had a rodent infestation problem. Seemed the graded runway attracted the little buggers. Keeping the weeds back was also a problem. Milford is a high-desert climate. Tumble weeds and other noxious weeds get big and grow spontaneously. Thorns and flat tires were wearing on my patience, as well as having to shovel in the rodent digs every time before flying. The other thing is that my plane was not secure. Anyone could simply walk up to it and inflict any type of damage, sabotage, or theft they saw fit. 

During this first year of flying, I had continued to work with Milford City towards having them write up a lease for building of a private hangar. They have a 4-plane T-hangar complex, but they were stuck in all the GA paradigms. The City once filed written complaints to the FAA stating that I was flying illegally and inappropriately. This was followed by an FAA inspection of my plane. Fortunately I had the proper paperwork in order when this inspection took place, and little resulted from this. 

I digress on this issue with Milford City, because those preparing to get into hangar building, or even into ultralighting, need to realize that the world in general is not as excited about ultralights as we are. You will likely be discriminated against. You will need to accept this discrimination, or get ready for a fight. Know this, that such discrimination is illegal. The FAA recognizes UL activity via the Part 103 regulations and exemptions thereto. Any airport that has received federal funds for improvements or construction is bound by funding covenants to allow ultralight airplanes access to their airports. The only exception to this rule is those airports that are in class A,B,C, or D and have performed an FAA airspace study that indicates that allowing UL activity would provide an unacceptable mix of aircraft at the airport. 

In my dealings with Milford City, I at one time asked, point blank if they would authorize me to operate my ultralight at their airport. In a City Council meeting, they responded with the answer “no”, not until we do an airspace study that says its safe. Well in reality they had no right to deny such until after the airspace study showed this. To put this in perspective, Milford has 1,450 residents.  In my book, it is a perfect place to allow operation of ultralight, experimental, and light sport aircraft. Land is plentiful and cheap. I would be surprised if Milford’s airport actually sees the 18 operations per day total as is reported on their annual FAA report. Only 4 planes are hangared there, and it is a rare event to actually see a plane active on the tarmac or runway at any given time. 

To make a long story short, I contacted the FAA via email, and had a letter from Milford City within a few days authorizing me to operate out of their airport. After over one year of trying to convince the City Council that a lease for a privately built hangar was a good idea, they finally developed a lease, written by their City Attorney. The lease was so poorly written, that no one in their right mind would sign it. It gave the City the right to terminate the lease at any time, for any reason, and they became the owner of the hangar. Sheesh! One final note on this subject. I am the only resident of Milford City that lives here and owns or flies an aircraft of any kind. If the airport is not for its own citizens, why do they have it? 

I ultimately signed a lease with Beaver City, located 30 miles away. The lease was very reasonable, and equitable for ultralight activity. They have both a dirt runway with UL’s stored in privately owned and built hangars at one end of it, as well as an asphalt runway with GA hangars in a separate area.  I wanted to build my hangar next to the GA hangars to have year round access to asphalt, whereas the ultralight area experiences 3 months of mud per year where you cannot access of fly from. I had formed a partnership with a friend that owns a 210 Cessna. We were going to build a 2-plane hangar there. The GA folks or the “airport board” as they like to call themselves caught wind of this and said that they weren’t going to allow UL’s in the GA area. Again, this is illegal discrimination against our sport. However, by this time I was certainly used to it. I was running out of options, and rather than fighting a fight, that I knew I would ultimately win, I just wanted to get going on construction. Rather than raising a stink, I simply signed the lease for the UL area and got started without the partnership of my Cessna friend. 

Design Having the trusses for free, the hangar design revolved around the trusses. The 60 feet wide trusses were too wide. I modified them by cutting them, inverting the halves, and making vaulted trusses by splicing them together appropriately.   I settled in on a pole-building type design. After having considered several designs and shapes of a hangar, I am convinced that this style building is the cheapest way to build a quality, spacious hangar. The T-shaped designs could save very slightly on materials, but are space constrictive. The rectangular building designs provide not only space for your airplane, but other toys, Christmas decorations, and a workbench. The T-shaped designs of the other UL hangars in Beaver did not fit their planes very well and each owner expressed to me that they wished they had built a rectangular hangar. Can you tell I don’t like the T hangar design? Posts Erected, Trusses in Foreground. Note notches in posts ready for trusses.
So what’s a pole building? You start by making the poles. I needed 10 feet of clearance in the center of my building, I went with a vaulted design that would clear my kingpost. I did not need high sidewalls, but they needed to be high enough to clear my wingtips.  My poles were to be constructed using 3 sandwiched 2X6’s. I used one 8 feet length sandwiched between two 10 feet lengths. The 8-foot ones were centered to leave a 1-foot notch top and bottom for the trusses to slide into once the poles were erected. I used Douglas Fir 2X6’s to be cemented into the ground. The County Building dept. didn’t approve of this. I suggested that they would be felt or plastic wrapped where they were poured into the concrete to provide a vapor barrier between the wood and concrete. Approved!  You need to set some benchmarks and level out the ground for your hangar before you get too far. Next it was time to dig the postholes into the ground. I dug the 20 postholes by hand, but a post hole auger on a tractor would have been much nicer and quicker. My hangar would have a 42’ span width by 24’ depth. I installed the posts at 32-inch centers for the sidewalls. They were set into the ground 30 inches. To assure that the posts would be aligned and stood plumb, I also formed an 8-inch thick, 1-foot wide perimeter footing at ground level using 2X8 lumber that I scavenged from extra trusses I obtained for free. With the holes dug, and the footings formed and set into place, I screwed the posts to the footing forms using grabber screws. Everything stood firmly in place by itself. I poured the concrete by myself with nobody to hold the posts plumb. I concreted the posts into place with the first yard of concrete, then poured the footings with the second yard of concrete. Allowing a couple of days for the concrete to cure, it was time to set the trusses. Using some more of my personal “angling” I was able to borrow a friend’s crane truck for free (I owe a lot of people a lot of favors). One of my flying buddies came up from St. George Utah and spent the day operating the crane truck while I did the setting, hammering, and bracing. Posts and Footings. (Note 40 mil plastic wrap for vapor barrier)
With the trusses set into place it was evident that I still had some work to do on them. The splicing and aging of the trusses made them such that they were not exactly the same. The next job would be to nail purlin boards across the trusses to not only stabilize the trusses, but provide nailing for the sheet metal roofing. But with uneven trusses, I had some work to do. I borrowed my father-in-law’s Craftsman router and shaved down the high trusses in an attempt to level out the areas where the purlin boards would be nailed. This worked great. Now, with purlin boards going across the roof and sidewalls of a 24 foot deep hangar, on 24” centers, I had a total length of 2X4 purlin boards equaling 3 football fields. This took awhile, and some fine tuned routing to get them all right, but after all this was done, the hangar was finally ready for sheet metal on the sidewalls and roof. The sheets of sheet metal on the roof were 26 feet long X 36 inches wide. I definitely needed two persons to do this job. I borrowed a couple of DeWalt cordless drills to screw the sheet metal down. Someday I’m going to own one of those great tools.
With the roof and sidewalls done, it was really starting to look like a hangar. I poured a 12 feet wide slab of concrete up the middle of the building for the plane to roll in an out on. I framed in the back wall with a man door in the center. I now realize that it would have been a better idea to put the doors to one side, but I still have 3 feet for the door to open into the hangar without hitting the elevators or rudder of my plane. Note: I added 3 feet to the length of my plane for overall hangar dimension. You may want to add more. I went with sheet metal with the ribs in horizontal orientation that would nail directly to the vertical stud type framing on the gable ends. This worked out wonderfully. I used Fabral Hefti-Rib sheet metal for the gable ends. Before setting the trusses, I nailed wood vertically down the gable end trusses and left some overhang below the bottom truss cord for the rest of the wall framing to be fastened to. This allowed for direct screwing of the sheet metal to the studs at the gable ends.  The overall height of my hangar is 22 feet. You need help and two very long ladders to sheet metal the gable ends. When you cut the sheet metal, use a powered circular saw to cut it, wearing safety goggles. You won’t want to cut all this with hand shears. It would take forever.

The Doors.

The part of the hangar that required the most significant amount of thought and design was the door. All of the other UL hangars had doors that I was not impressed with. If you have the cash, a bi-fold door that folds in the middle and raises as it folds in the middle would be the way to go. Remember, we are trying to go affordable here. At the beginning, I was planning on building my own bi-fold using a 12-volt solar charged battery and wench and cables to lift the door. I finally decided against doing this as I figured it would be a pain. I didn’t have power at the hangar. The extra structure required for the door was significant, and it just kept getting more complicated when I started sitting down and designing it out. I wanted simple. 
Hangar Door From Inside - (note locking rods through bottom, concrete strip, ceiling) 

I stopped at every rural airport I could when I got the chance just to look at hangar doors. I finally settled on a sliding door design that I saw on a private hangar in Delta, Utah. I was going to do better execution of it myself. This one seemed to be held together by bailing wire. It was sheet metal screwed to wood and just didn’t look very sturdy. 

The doors slide using a top slider guide and rolling hangars. I have no welding experience, so this is an “angle” that I do not have and one that cost big dollars. However, I wanted the door to be right, and was willing to spend the money here. So I had to shell out the biggest chunk of cash having the doorframes and sliding rails made at the local machine shop. The doorframes are 2” X 1 ½” X 3/32” rectangular steel. Two 17’ wide X 10’ high doors each are suspended from two rolling hangars that roll in the sliding rail. The rail is mounted to 3X4 angle. The doors slide past the outside of the building. I don’t want the wind to take my doors for a ride so, I built some significant structure to support the rail on the sides of the building. I cemented two schedule 40 steel posts into the ground 9-feet away from the building, as well as mounted 2” angle on the front corners of the hangar.  I mounted these such that 11 feet of angle and post were out of the ground. I mounted a diagonal piece of angle on each 2” post to the ground to provide stability. I also had the doors made with 2” angle and a flat piece of steel to make a groove for the door guides. The door guides were also 2” angle anchored directly to a concrete footing in the front of the building.

 While I was waiting for the door frames to be made I decided that I would put a ceiling up. If birds get in there, they won’t have a place to land and crap on my plane. I did this with some industrial felt material that comes in 15 feet wide rolls, like carpet. I also got this for nothing. Looking back, I might have ordered more sheet metal for the ceiling on the inside of the hangar.  I used some of the extra cover sheets that they use for protection on part of the ceiling. It looks pretty good. 

To save some money and space, so you don’t have to put your door supports so far outside of the hangar, mount the roller hangars at the quarter points at the top of the door frames. You only need or want two hangers for each door to hang from. The doors were heavy, weighing in at 300 lbs. each without the sheet metal. The doorframe is constructed with the metal situated such that it is 2 inches thick. It has a center member horizontally, and vertical members at quarter points. Gussets to keep it square and from sagging are in there. This design will easily work for hangar doors up to 20 feet in width (40 feet total opening). Mount the hangar rollers directly above the quarter vertical members. This places the same amount of moment arm inside the hangar rollers, as outside, effecting no moment arm at the door rollers, and minimizes sag. I calculate that my doors have somewhere around 1/16”sag on the outside and none in the middle between the rollers. You can’t tell that there is any sag at all just by looking at them. Biggest bugger with the door was hanging the top support rails. I had these made in two, 30 foot lengths. I could drag them off the trailer, but it took a loader bucket, and some decent straps to lift them into place. 

They work with ease and look wonderful, and with the 2-inch angle as a guide at the bottom, they slide easily and won’t blow away when open and exposed to the wind. I screwed the sheet metal to the doorframes using self-drilling screws, ¾” long. The sheet metal was very easy to install, as the 2-inch angle mounted to the bottom of the frame stuck out ¾” and provided a rest for the 10 feet long sheets of metal. I could slap up the metal and rest it on the angle hanging out at the bottom of the door then run the screws in. To keep the doors locked, I made some 5/8” rods that stick into the bottom of the frame and go into holes I hammer drilled into the concrete.  They stick all the way through the concrete footing, and are very snug, so that it is impossible to open them from the outside. The hangar is locked from the man door on the backside of the hangar. 

Finish Line

With the doors done, and working great, it was time to finish the hangar. I had ordered sheet metal for a cover on the top of the doors. This is necessary and shields the door’s hardware from moisture and also closes it off so sun and birds don’t get in. I had straps welded on the top angle to allow for mounting of the cover metal. Then we finished screwing in the Hefti-Rib on the top of the door to close of the gable end. With the trim installed along the top of the roofline, the hangar was finished! The best part about being finished was rolling the airplane in there for the first time. It was definitely one of the best days since starting to fly.  

If you’d like to build a hangar like this one, and have questions, please feel free to email or call mebjmoore@c4farms.com 435-387-2107.

(The only thing missing is my Drifter) 

Da Plane, Da Plane!

Credits
The Cast (in order of appearance). Circle Four Farms, Carl & Landon Maples, Jeff Kessler, Layne Sorden, Richard Henrie, Dual A Construction, Travis Blackner, Max Terrell, My Wife, Bob Cook, Lee R. Beaumont, Yardleys.
Deepest Thanks. I couldn’t have done it without ya!