Attn: Old Time Airline Pilots

I can remember a DC-2/DC-3 taxiing into one, shut down, and doors
closed. Passengers got off and new ones got on. Doors opened, engines
cranked, and bird taxied out and took off, all in a snow storm.

Thanks, Big John. You're the first person I've communicated with that
actually saw one of those hangars in use that way.

The doors on ours have been changed at some point. Both ends of the hangar
used to have the doors that slid open on big, long suspended tracks, so that
you could have the full-span of the building available for wing clearance.
This arrangement would result in all of your hangar doors actually hanging
outside (and beside) the hangar, on a big metal scaffold-type framework that
extended some 75 feet alongside the hangar door opening.

Somewhere along the way, the North doors have been sealed shut (although the
big track framework is still there), and the South doors were completely
changed so that they all slide to one side or the other, INSIDE the hangar.
The framework for the South side was removed when they changed the door
track design.

This still leaves a huge open span -- big enough for anything up to King Air
size -- but no longer big enough for a DC-3 or better.

I'm sure this was done for maintenance reasons -- can you imagine keeping
those huge, suspended structures (and they are WAY up there, like five
stories in the air) clear of ice and snow? It must've been a nightmare.

Still, the amazing thing is that those big old doors, four stories tall,
immensely heavy, and 70 years old, can still be pushed open by my 10 year
old daughter without effort. They are SO precisely hung, and the bearings
are so perfect. Heck, my stupid T-hangar, built 30 years later (in 1960)
has a door that requires far more brute strength.

Thanks for recollecting!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"