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Hangar Construction: Proceed Cautiously

Rick Durden
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On The Cover: That's a Morton Buildings pre-engineered custom hangar. While it's fancier than your typical budget T-hangar, it shows there is no limit to what you can build. But before you venture on contracting your own airplane castle, do the homework. There's a lot more to the pricey project than selecting a building. We help sort it all out in the hangar construction article.

One of the paradoxes of general aviation is trying to make sense of hangar availability. Even though overall flying seems to be down, trying to find a hangar at many airports is an exercise in getting on waiting lists or going through never-ending procedures for approval to build a hangar. At others, hangars stand empty and deteriorating. 

We’ve given up trying to understand the dynamics of hangar shortages on airports where there is plenty of open space to build. Nevertheless, we’re going to look at how to go about building a hangar when the stars line up and the opportunity arises. 

Rick Durden

Senior Editor Rick Durden has written for Aviation Consumer since 1994 and specializes in aviation law. Rick is an active CFII and holds an ATP with type ratings in the Douglas DC-3 and Cessna Citation. He is the author of The Thinking Pilot’s Flight Manual or, How to Survive Flying Little Airplanes and Have a Ball Doing It, Vols. 1 & 2.