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The OxAero Sidewiser Hangar accommodates two gliders in a quality steel building of minimal proportions. The floor plan is designed to minimize costs without sacrificing needs or convenience. In fact, this hangar provides two advantages not found in larger, conventional hangars. First, it makes packing and unpacking the gliders a simple, easy, one-person job. And, properly used, it virtually eliminates hangar rash incidents.
The flagship hangar was constructed at the Memphis Soaring Society glider port (Lawrence Field) in Cherry Valley, AR.
The economy of this design comes from moving the gliders in and out through the narrow end of the building and from configuring the gliders nose-to-tail so that one wing of each glider passes over the tail boom of the other. This configuration means that the hangar is only 10 feet longer than one designed for a single glider. So, a small increase in cost doubles the capacity and almost cuts the per glider cost in half.
Another advantage of a narrow hangar is the increased likelihood of putting it on an existing airport with limited taxiway access.
Although its dimensions are small, the sidewiser hangar can also accommodate two glider trailers, a workbench, storage lockers/shelves and a golf cart for glider towing and gliderport transportation. Besides a bathroom and living quarters it's hard to imagine anything else a larger hangar can offer.
The use of guided mainwheel dollies permits close packing clearances without increasing the risk of hangar rash incidents. It also greatly reduces the effort needed to pack and unpack the hangar and enables one person to do the work with ease. These are advantages not realized in conventional hangars of larger proportions.
In a normal hangar, two people are needed to move a glider, one to push/pull and one to steer from a wing tip. Often, one person can do the job, but with considerable effort and risk of contacting other things in the hangar.
With a guided mainwheel dolly, one person does the pushing and pulling while the dolly does the guiding. With this arrangement, clearances of even a few inches are safe.
One question that often comes up is "why isn't there a back door for the innermost glider?" There are several reasons. First, since it is so easy to move gliders in and out, the effort to unpack and repack the outer glider for access to the inner glider is not onerous. Second, even though the main door is on the end of the building, it is not a cheap item and adding another one would cost about $4,500. Third, at most airports, the path to the runway from the rear of a hangar, if it exists at all, is likely to be a long one, making the additional towing less desirable than ground handling the outer glider. Forth, it removes useable wall space at the rear of the hangar. In the present design, since both gliders come out and in through the same end of the hangar, the inner spaces that are never traversed by a glider can be used for all sorts of storage. However, it would be wasted space if a glider had to pass over it.
The approximate total cost of a hangar is $36,000. This is less than half the cost of a new racing class glider. However, the per glider cost is $18,000, the cost of a used glider.
OxAero recommends a 31’ x 60’ x 11’ structure from for this project. The specifications must match the OxAero Sidewiser Hangar Plans for everything to work correctly. OxAero is working with several metal building manufacturers to help you find a building that suits your specific needs and budget. Some of them offer an OxAero referral discount. Use the following form to contact these manufacturers.
Hangar Plans |
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| A booklet of plans for this hangar are available from OxAero. This is a 16 page document that fully describes everything you should know to build your hangar. The booklet includes: | |
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