Airplane Hangar Doors: Planning Your Hangar

Choosing the Right Hangar Door Systems

If you’re planning to build a new aircraft hangar, you’ll need to choose the construction material, and one of the most popular by far is steel. You’ll also need to choose its features, and one of the most important factors is the door. But what type of door will work best in your scenario?

Determining Your Needs

Before choosing your hangar door systems, you need to ask yourself several questions. Should you design the hangar to accommodate the additional weight of an overhead door or consider doors that slide into outriggers? That would mean that you will need some additional clear space on each side. Once you’ve worked out how to build your steel structure, you can explore each hangar door type in detail.

Choosing Your Doors

Overhead Doors

Overhead doors come in two basic types. They can feature a hydraulic door system or an electric motor, with the door attached via cables and stabilized by a counterweight. These doors swing outward before moving upward to their fully open position. So you will need additional space out front that is at least equal to the door size to keep it clear for safety.

It may be a good idea to install windows at ground level when you operate these hydraulic doors, so the operator will clearly see any potential obstruction before activating the mechanism.

When fully open, these doors represent a flat surface that can protrude in front of the building. Remember this when it comes to water or snow accumulation, and make sure that you allow for a slight angle to facilitate run-off. If your door is in one piece, you need to design the hangar to accommodate the additional stress it may put on the frame.

Bifold Doors

Other hangar doors are designed to fold in half before rising out of sight. Due to their inherent design, these bifold doors require less space and can exert far less force on the building frame. You need to install a series of electric motors and cables, and these systems often use a lifting strap that coils around the drum as the door is in motion. Some other designs utilize steel cables.

Rolling Hangar Doors

As another option, you could choose sliding doors. These are attached to a roller mechanism that moves horizontally along a track sunk into the floor. These can be manually or electrically operated and may be split into multiple panels depending on the door opening size.

With rolling hangar doors, you will need available space on the side of the hangar, and this type of crossover door is typically less expensive than the overhead alternative.

Simple Sliding Doors

Another type of sliding door simply moves on one plane into the center point of the hangar. This has limitations in that it does not permit the full width of the hangar opening to be used.

Sliding Doors Into Outriggers

As a further alternative, consider sliding doors that do not curve inward (taking up some internal space) but slide straight outward into an outrigger frame. You can choose a single outrigger, where the door moves to one side only. This may be a better solution if you do not have a lot of available land.

Aircraft Hangar Configurations

When configuring the aircraft hangar door design, remember that the larger your structure, the stronger the individual doors need to be. This is why you can choose doors with additional bracing that gives them extra stability and makes them much less likely to fail, especially in windy conditions.

When you choose a steel building for your aircraft hangar, your chosen size may be dictated by the number of aircraft you wish to store within. Some of the most common building sizes include 50’ x 60’ for a single aircraft and up to 240’ x 250’ for multi-craft operation.

Choosing Custom Metal Structures

With this type of project, it’s always best to buy a custom metal structure from the experts in the business. When you do, you’ll find that it’ll be much faster, easily installed, fire-resistant, safe, and durable. You can vary its dimensions, and if you need a high clearance, this is not an issue.

Custom steel buildings are far more cost-efficient than traditional brick or concrete solutions and are maintenance-free, meaning that you do not need to patch or paint as time passes. You can choose from various colors and options when it comes to the finish. Furthermore, you can even add weather seals or extra protection.

Working With the Experts

Choose Maverick Steel Buildings for your aircraft hangar kit, and you will be working with one of the undoubted experts in the field. The structure will be custom manufactured using 100% American-made steel, so you will be supporting a network of American businesses at the same time.

Get in touch with Maverick Steel Buildings for more information about your aircraft hangar doors.