The hangar door is big. Probably 40 feet wide, 20 feet high, many hundred pounds. Hinged along the top edge, hydraulic rams push it open.

ArtieS and I came back from lunch today, I turned the pump on and started to open the door. There was a really loud "CRUNCH" and the door sagged just a bit on one side.

Artie looked up and spotted the problem; one of the main hinges had rusted through.

Lowered the door carefully, no airplanes will move in or out until the hinge is replaced, and Lord only knows how long that will take. Response time from repair folks is typically somewhere between "not soon" and "never."

At least the crunch wasn't airplane aluminum skin.
Hope repairs are mostly painless for you.

That sucks. At least the plane is stuck inside of the hanger and not outside. Try to get them to replace all of the hinges as the others probably aren't much better off.

quote:

Originally posted by jimmy123x:
That sucks. At least the plane is stuck inside of the hanger and not outside. Try to get them to replace all of the hinges as the others probably aren't much better off.

Actually, the Bonanza was not in the hangar at the time, and that is A Good Thing! My partner has it, down in your neck of the woods. "Donut Dude" my partner, so called because he owns Dunkin' Donut franchises in South Florida, sort of commutes between home base near Orlando and his business locations in the Miami area, the Keys, and southwest Florida -- Naples, Fort Myers, etc. If it had been in the hangar at the time it would be stuck there and unusable. This way, locked out instead of locked in, it can be used.

Good point about checking the other hinges. We might be OK on those, Artie pointed out that there is a piece of weather stripping that goes the length of the door, covering the hinges. A short section of the weather stripping is missing, it's the section that should be covering the hinge that failed. The theory is, the unprotected hinge got rained on and over the course of years, it rusted through.

I have no idea what the door weighs. A ton or so would not surprise me. I'm thankful that it did not come crashing down.

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
... Response time from repair folks is typically somewhere between "not soon" and "never."

Of course! Airplanes are involved, so it's got to be expensive and time consuming. If you're lucky, you won't need an FAA inspection after it's done in a month or two.

Funny story about aircraft parts and repairs. Back in the 1960's, a friend's uncle operated a highly successful automotive generator/alternator/starter repair service in California. A guy brought him an aircraft alternator for repair, knowing he would get fair treatment from the company, and he did. The owner got it done, but since he didn't want to work on airplane stuff, he charged four times his normal price for the work.

Next thing he knows, he's got a whole bunch more A/C owners lined up to get him working on their parts as well. Seems that, at four times the going rate, he was still a helluva lot cheaper than the same work (and parts, too apparently) by any of the A&P's in the area.

V-Tail, I feel your pain. It's always somewhat of an eye opener when something we've done a thousand times, like opening a hangar door, suddenly stops working.

Over the years I've had everything from large hangar doors that slid on rusty rollers in ceiling tracks to tri-fold doors fail at some point.

One memorable failure: The morning of an airshow we showed up early to get the doors open giving the various pilots access to their airshow aircraft and roll them out onto the tarmac. Although not all the airshow a/c were in our hangar we had a few of the big acts including the French Connection and Kirk Wicker. A few of the other big acts including Jim Franklin and Bobby Younkin had left their a/c outside the hangar, but most all of the performers still needed access to the hangar.

I hit the button to raise the huge electrically operated tri-fold doors and they get about a third of the way when suddenly all the power went out. No hangar lights, air compressor quits, doors stop rising.

No airplanes going anywhere. A call to country airport management at the other end of the airport and it turns out they lost power too. Utility company is called and, at this level of government they responded within an hour...turns out some kid had released a mylar helium balloon that rose into some nearby power lines that served the airport and shorted them out.

Power was restored in about an hour or so and, other than a few delayed and grouchy airshow performers, no permanent harm done.

The smallest things can prove to be a real bitch when they fail.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Modern Day Savage,

It really sucks when your business hinges on one small part....

quote:

Originally posted by zoom6zoom:
It really sucks when your business hinges on one small part....

I see what you did there...