Category Archives: Unusual Doors or Special Features

British Airways Flying Club

Booker Airfield, High Wycombe, UK

Booker Airfield is home to a number of REIDsteel structures one of which features a bi-fold door.

The first hangar built in 1999 had top hung sliding doors. One year later, REIDsteel constructed a second hangar, which needed a higher door that was motorised. Given the restriction on height governed by our building built the previous year it was decided that a bi-fold door (also known as a hi-fold) was the answer. This achieved a clear height of 5.3m and a further 0.8m for the depth of the door in its open position.

The third and final hangar was constructed later along the same lines as the original with a top hung sliding doors.

Flying Services Hangar

Sandown, Isle of Wight

The hangar area within this building is accessed by a galvanized folding shutter door. Folding shutter doors can be useful on smaller hangars as they are low cost and only occupy 10% of the width when stacked.

The Specialist Flying School is insulated to provide comfort for the residents and accommodates 400m2 of hangar area, 200m2 for lounge/classroom and administration complete with 120m2 of residential rooms.

RNAS Culdrose Hangar – Cascade Door System

Helston, Cornwall, UK

This hangar features a REIDsteel cascade door system. It has six leaves, all of them driven through an easily generated cable and gearbox arrangement ensuring that all leaves arrived at the fully open and fully closed position at the same time by travelling at different speeds, all generated by a single handle.

The hangar has outriggers to permit full width entry, and is also an unusual hangar in that the hangar doors were located at the front and the rear, offering access from both ends.

Built to house the Royal Navy’s Merlin search and rescue helicopter this 2000m2 hangar, took only twenty five weeks to design, manufacture and erect in spite of high winds and generally wet conditions.

Military Hangars:
We always respect client confidentiality and may withhold some details in our military hangar case studies. If you require a military hangar please contact us.

Surrey Air Ambulance

Cranleigh, UK

By using 6 slabs with a very narrow width of 2 metres on 3 tracks, REIDsteel were able to provide this hangar with a 12m clear opening without extending beyond the required 16m footprint.

Top hung doors were used due to the low weight of these 5m high, uninsulated, manually operated doors and to keep groundwork costs to a minimum. REIDsteel provided all steelwork, cladding for the hangar and hangar doors.

Eznis Airways – Inflatable Fuselage Sealing Ring

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

An inflatable fuselage sealing ring, enables the main bulk of the plane to remain outside, while important maintenance on the aircraft nose can be achieved within the hangar.

The Eznis hangar features a bespoke ring for an Avro RJ85 plane. Once the plane is in position the ring can be quickly inflated to provide a perfect seal against the elements. A weatherproof seal is an important feature in any climate, but especially important in this part of Mongolia where winter temperatures can plummet to minus 40 degrees.

When the sealing ring is not in use, two small top hung sliding doors set onto the hangar door slabs can be closed to secure the hangar.

For more information about the slab doors and outriggers on this hangar, see our Doors with outriggers section.

Terminal Hangar Tailgate Door

Biggin Hill Airport, UK

This hangar features an unusual tailgate door, in that it is placed towards one end, not the more usual dead centre position.

Planning conditions had limited the height of the hangar to 13m, and it was essential that two of the hangars three areas would be accessible at once. Furthermore the area on the left side needed to house a Boeing Business Jet that was 12.5m high!

REIDsteel’s solution was to use a tailgate door in conjunction with a nine slab hangar door set on three tracks that covered the entire 121m length of the hangar.

This required some clever engineering to allow the slabs to ‘jump’ the 3m gap created in the top track by the tailgate opening. Although most of the weight of the doors is borne by the bottom rolling track, this top track supplies stability and the power to the doors motors and alarms.

The 4.3m tall tailgate opening takes the available height to 13.5m was sealed by a REIDsteel(?) roller shutter door.

More information on the slab doors of this hangar is available in a case study in the section Doors Within the Width of the Hangar.