By Christina Marsh and GMC Regional Vice President Steve Jernigan, FAIA, LEED AP
Q&A with GMC Regional Vice President and Resident Aviation Architecture Expert Steve Jernigan on decision-making processes when it comes to FBO and MRO hangar needs.
There are many things to take into consideration when it comes to building a hangar for an FBO or MRO. What types of materials should be considered? How large should the facility be? What is the goal for the facility? What types of operations will take place within the facility?
All of these questions are essential in making sure the facility is designed to meet the needs of the day-to-day operations and not the other way around.
Goodwyn Mills Cawood Regional Vice President and Resident Aviation Architecture Expert Steve Jernigan spoke with Airport Business to give some helpful advice on decision-making processes when it comes to hangar needs; the goals, design challenges and the aspects of the space that are the most important to business and best practices in making informed choices on building these facilities.
AB: When starting a hangar project for an FBO or MRO, how do you determine what needs are the most essential in building an appropriate hangar and what needs should be taken into consideration?
Jernigan: “The very first thing you would think about is the size of the aircraft and the number of aircraft that they need to hang. That’s going to really drive really the depth and size of the building itself and also what the clear height is because that really starts to drive the design, because the tail heights of the aircraft, you don’t only have to take into account the structure itself but anything hanging from the structure. Light fixtures, fans, fire sprinkler, piping, anything like that, you’ve got to take into account to make sure that you clear any of those items and make sure that they clear the tail height of the particular aircraft.”
AB: What advice do you have for hangars being used for maintenance versus storage?
Jernigan: “Those are very different uses. For example, if you’ve got a storage hangar, it’s a lot easier to kind of play puzzle maker and put the aircraft in there, but you got to think about, ‘Okay, when does this aircraft need to move? When does this one need to come out?’
It’s always a challenge because moving aircraft around, just the potential of any damage to the aircraft, especially the wings or the tail surfaces is horrendously expensive and a major insurance claim that you really don’t want to deal with. That’s why typically on a hangar versus a normal building, you really have very, very large clear spans to maximize the clear space within the structure, but also to eliminate that risk of hitting a column that might be in the middle of the building somewhere.”
AB: Are there different rules and codes if you’re just storing aircraft versus if you’re doing maintenance?
Jernigan: “If you’re doing maintenance, there are a lot of additional fire protection requirements, even to the point of needing to remove all of the fuel from the aircraft while any maintenance is going on. It’s how close the aircraft can be parked to any outside wall or a structural member. Any electrical items such as receptacles, light fixtures, have to be, if they’re within a certain distance of an aircraft, have to be explosion proof, all kinds of UL listings just to make sure that in case there is an incident that you’re able to control that and you don’t have an out of control fire.
You might get into foam fire suppression, which is a very, very controversial subject right now. In fact, the PFAS foam, which has been used in aviation facilities for many years has been banned in California and other states are looking to ban it. And insurance requirements are such that most users are getting away from any type of foam fire suppression system. So, what we do is we bring in specialty fire protection engineers who specialize in hangars to help us with the design.”