Sport Pilot Talk

roger lee

Hi All,

Is my hangar door just waiting for me to be complacent? (Yes it is!)

Another recent incident has prompted me to throw this out for review.

Just wanted to touch bases with everyone concerning our hangar doors. Over the last couple of years too many people have shut their hangar doors on their plane. Usually the tail and a few wings. That means we are leaving our planes way too close to the door edge whether it be on the inside, but usually these incidents happen when the plane is on the outside of the door.
When I was on the Fire Department there were many door accidents as the truck would pull out. You can imagine what something the size of a fire truck can do to a large garage type door. The cost to the department was hundreds of thousands of dollars.
So a policy was written. The door is either on 12" off the ground and open for air movement or it was all the way open. Nothing in between. The truck was either all the way in the apparatus bay or it was all the way out. No one was allowed to touch the close button until the truck was way out of the station or parked inside. Failure to follow these rules led to a one day suspension and damage to another door or vehicle was much longer.
The point of this is to make everyone take notice that their plane should never be parked half way in or out of the hangar or very close to any door. If it is an electric hangar door it has a certain amount of angle that it protrudes as it opens.
These hanger accidents has cost many thousands of dollars and I hope this little article helps someone from having this type of accident again. Even if the insurance pays for this incident the repair work and logistics is a royal pain.
If I have to have something that crosses the door threshold then I trip the electrical breakers so there is no power to the door and it can't move.

Don't get suspended keep your attention focused and your plane at a safe distance from the hangar door. :wink:

Jim Stewart · Joined: 12 Oct 2006 Posts: 259

A bit off-topic, but this reminds me of railroad rules...

The railroads had a problem with brakemen throwing a track switch, watching the train take the sidetrack, then throwing the switch back before the last car cleared the switch points, causing a derailment. Sounds stupid, but it must be some kind of human nature thing. The railroad rules now require the brakeman to step 10 feet away from the switch after throwing it...

dstclair · Joined: 06 Mar 2008 Posts: 212 Location: Allen, TX

I think this is the first topic on a Hangar in the forum Hangar Talk :D

I fixed the potential problem of closing the door on my plane by moving to new hangar that doesn't have an electric door. Kind of hard to manually close the folding door on anything.

I do chain the door to the sides when I open so the wind or gravity doesn't partially move the folding door. Also makes it a very deliverate process to close.

bryancobb · Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2010 1:04 pm Post subject: Hanger DOOR HAZARD!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkeqQY3t174

This guy just decreased his Robinson R44 from a $275,000 machine to a $24,000 machine.

ArionAv8or · Joined: 20 Mar 2010 Posts: 271

bryancobb wrote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkeqQY3t174

This guy just decreased his Robinson R44 from a $275,000 machine to a $24,000 machine.

Ouch!!!

Cub flyer · Joined: 10 Sep 2006 Posts: 593

I wish I had a door on the Cub hangar. Actually it has only two walls.

I taxi in the back and out the front. Preflight in the shade. Silverstream shelter steel hog barn with a fabric membrane roof. 40X30

allegroboy · Joined: 12 Mar 2011 Posts: 10 Location: skokie Illinois

what a way to ruin a nice helicopter.... ouch!!!