CIVIL AVIATION
DOORS FOR COUGAR HELICOPTERS
HALIFAX
Cougar Helicopters operates from St. John’s, for sale Newfoundland and Halifax, search Nova Scotia. They support Canada’s offshore oil production and have been providing Search and Rescue (SAR) services since 1991.
Spec-Dor designed and manufactured the hangar doors for Cougar Helicopter’s facility in Halifax, NS. For this project, Spec-Dor worked with The Garage Door Store and contractor Linsay Construction Building Partners.
Multidirectional Hangar Door
The door comprises three sliding blades for a hangar opening measuring 115 feet wide by 23 feet tall. The two outer panels are driven by electrical motors allowing the door to be opened from right to left or from left to right. As an outer panel moves, it picks up the central panel allowing the opening to be almost two thirds the full width. Each blade incorporates four windows, 3 feet 6 inches square to accommodate Thermopane windows. In one of the outer blades, a man door was inserted instead of one window.
Rails And Rail Flashings
The bottom rails were installed with rail flashings as with all Spec-Dor installations. These are essential as they provide a smooth surface for the bottom door seal; simplify the pouring of concrete and guarantee adequate clearance for the wheel flanges.
Weather Stripping
Spec-Dor provided superior sealing by using a combination of brush weather-stripping and heavy duty air barriers. This near air-tight seal is essential to minimise heat loss and to prevent bird infestation.
Drives and Controls
Each of the two outer blades has a drive unit with a 1.3HP electric motor complete with manual disconnect and electromagnetic brake. Each blade is controlled via a pendant push-button station allowing them to be controlled independently. Tow arms were fitted to the outer doors to allow them to be moved manually if necessary.
Heavy Duty Floor Bumpers
When the doors are reaching the fully closed position, they are automatically slowed down using the electromagnetic brake. The door position is detected using end of travel limit switches. Heavy duty floor bumpers are used to decelerate the blades to a complete stop without damage.
DOORS FOR CALM AIR
WINNIPEG
Calm Air is a niche airline that serves the northern part of Central Canada, including northern Manitoba and Nunavut. The airline operates frequent daily scheduled passenger and cargo flights throughout Manitoba and the Kivalliq Region of Nunavut from its three main bases at Winnipeg, rx Thompson and Churchill (Manitoba).
SpecDor designed and manufactured the hangar doors for Calm Air’s hangar at their Winnipeg base.
DOORS FOR CALM AIR
WINNIPEG
Calm Air is a niche airline that serves the northern part of Central Canada, including northern Manitoba and Nunavut. The airline operates frequent daily scheduled passenger and cargo flights throughout Manitoba and the Kivalliq Region of Nunavut from its three main bases at Winnipeg, rx Thompson and Churchill (Manitoba).
SpecDor designed and manufactured the hangar doors for Calm Air’s hangar at their Winnipeg base.
Bi-Parting Hangar Doors
The hangar opening measures 150 feet wide by 28 feet tall with a tailfin door 10 feet by 14 feet. One electrically operated bi-parting bottom rolling hangar door was designed with 6 blades. Each blade incorporates two windows, 5 feet by 3 feet 6 inches, to accommodate Thermopane windows
Northern Configuration
A Northern configuration was used with the door blades housed in internal pockets when the doors are open. The Northern configuration was essential in Winnipeg, where ice and snow are a certainty during the winter months. With this configuration, the bottom rails and hardware are protected from the outside elements when the doors are closed.
Rails and Rail Flashings
As with all Spec-Dor installations, the bottom rails were installed with rail flashings. These are essential as they simplify the pouring of concrete; guarantee adequate clearance for the wheel flanges and provide a smooth surface for the bottom door seal.
Weather Stripping
Spec-Dor provided superior sealing by using a combination of brush weather-stripping and heavy duty air barriers. This near air-tight seal is essential to minimise heat loss and to prevent bird infestation.
Drives and Controls
When the doors are reaching the fully closed position, they are automatically slowed down using the electromagnetic brake. The door position is detected using end of travel limit switches. Heavy duty floor bumpers are used to decelerate the blades to a complete stop without damage.
Heavy Duty Floor Bumpers
When the doors are reaching the fully open position, they are automatically slowed down using the electromagnetic brake. The door position is detected using end of travel limit switches. Heavy duty floor bumpers are used to decelerate the blades to a complete stop without damage.
SLIDE TO ONE SIDE HANGAR DOORS FOR IP AVIATION GROUP
HALIFAX WATERLOO, ON
SpecDor designed and manufactured the hangar doors for the brand new hangar commissioned by IP Aviation Group at the Region of Waterloo International Airport (CYKF) in southern Ontario. The airport, located in Canada’s “technology triangle",serves residents in the neighbouring cities of Cambridge, Kitchener and Waterloo. In 2011, CYKF was ranked by Statistics Canada as the country’s 18th busiest airport, with a grand total of 96,907 aircraft movements during the year.
For this project, SpecDor worked with Akitt, Swanson and Pearce Architects Inc. (now known as Pearce McCluskey Architects). The contractor was Maple Reinders Constructors Ltd.
Slide to One Side Hangar Door
The hangar opening measured 36.46 metres wide by 8.5 metres tall. One electrically operated slide-to-one-side bottom rolling hangar door was designed with 4 blades, each measuring 9.2 metres wide. Each blade incorporated four openings 1.8 metres wide by 1.1 metres high to accommodate Thermopane windows.
Northern Configuration
A Northern configuration was used as ice and snow are a certainty in the Waterloo region in winter. When open, the door blades are housed in an internal pocket. When the door is closed, the bottom rails and hardware are protected from the outside elements. Heating cables were installed to help keep the rails free from ice and snow while the door is open.
Rails and Rail Flashings
The bottom rails were installed with rail flashings. SpecDor considers rail flashings as essential as they simplify the pouring of concrete; guarantee adequate clearance for the wheel flanges and provide a smooth surface for the bottom door seal.
Weather Stripping
Weather stripping is essential to minimise heat loss and to prevent bird infestation. SpecDor ensures near air-tight seals by using brush weather-stripping with heavy duty air barriers. This combination provides superior sealing.
Drives and Controls
The drive unit used a 3HP electric motor complete with electromagnetic brake and manual disconnect. Power was supplied to the motor via a “Festoon system” power feed line. The door is controlled via a single control panel along with a single pendant pushbutton station.
Heavy Duty Floor Bumpers
The door is automatically slowed down using end travel limit switches to detect the door position and control the electromagnetic brake. The door sections are decelerated to a stop without damage using heavy duty floor bumpers.
BI-PARTING HANGAR DOORS
WINDSOR INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
The hangar doors for Premier Aviation’s new maintenance, repair and overhaul hangar at Windsor International Airport were designed and manufactured by SpecDor.
SpecDor worked with contractors Aveiro Constructors Ltd. and EBA (A Tetra Tech Company) were the consulting engineers for the project.
BI-PARTING HANGAR DOORS
WINDSOR INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
The hangar doors for Premier Aviation’s new maintenance, repair and overhaul hangar at Windsor International Airport were designed and manufactured by SpecDor.
SpecDor worked with contractors Aveiro Constructors Ltd. and EBA (A Tetra Tech Company) were the consulting engineers for the project.
Slide to One Side Hangar Door
At 143,000-square-feet, ask the hangar is large enough to house two Boeing 737 planes and one Boeing 747 plane at the same time. It has two identical openings, one at each end of the building, measuring 225 feet wide by 46 feet tall with a tail fin opening of 12 feet 5 inches wide by 7 feet 7 inches tall at one end.
Each opening has a pair of bi-parting hangar doors with 4 blades per door. The two centre blades each have two 3HP electric drive motors.
Bi-parting Northern Configuration
The building was designed with pocket spaces to house the blades inside the building when the doors are open. Hence, a bi-parting Northern design configuration was possible.
This configuration is typically used in climates where snow and ice is a major concern as the hardware and bottom rails are not exposed to the elements while the doors are closed.
Custom Truck Door Design
A custom design was required to provide an 8 feet by 8 feet truck door in one of the blades at each end of the building. The truck doors were rolling service doors with 2inch steel slats operated by a chain hoist.
BIFOLD HANGAR DOORS
Bifold hangar doors are commonly installed on small private hangars or “T hangar” developments. They have been an economical solution for small openings, but as opening widths grow Spec-Dor’s new ECO bottom rolling hangar door become a cost effective alternative to the bi-fold door. It is of great importance that architect and hangar designers understand the full impact of hangar door integration to maximize project savings and customer satisfaction.
Bifold Hangar Door Problems
Generally speaking, you don’t have to go very far to hear a horror story concerning a bifold door failure. In some cases, bifold doors can fail catastrophically, crashing down causing personal injury or aircraft damage. Other common issues are a result of a mechanical failure rendering the bi-fold door to fail to completely open. Hangar personnel are fooled by the reduced headroom clearance, which far too commonly results in costly aircraft repairs and/or insurance nightmares. Invariably a non-functioning bifold door blocks the opening making the hangar unusable until the maintenance guys show up. Although maintenance costs are not associated with project construction costs, the inconvenience and loss of revenue due to a non-functional door will make paying for the investment more difficult. As a general rule of thumb the following statements hold true:
Bifold Hangar Doors Hidden Costs
As a consumer or hangar contractor it seem only obvious that if you pair a low cost building with a low cost hangar door, the result would be a low cost hangar package. Unfortunately, in many construction projects misunderstood door requirements can increase the building’s quoted price quite substantially. It is commonly understood that bifold doors are hinged on the lintel of the building. The entire weight of the door will hang from a roof truss. In many cases, the weight of the door was not known or given to the building supplier at the time of quoting, resulting in extra costs.
A lesser-known hidden cost results from the bifold door’s inability to operate with normal building deflection parameters. To understand this concept it is important to understand that a bifold door has a series of hinges attaching the door to the lintel of the building. It is obvious that the hinges must be installed in a straight line for the door to function properly. It is also normal for building roofs to deflect up and down depending on load and temperature. In many cases the out of line tolerance for a bifold door is only an inch or so. The building code limits the maximum roof deflection to about 1 inch in 20ft. Again, as the door width increases the normal building deflection can easily be up to 4 inches. To properly compensate, the building designer must stiffen the roof structure of the building. The building’s cost will escalate rapidly as the door width increases.
Bifold Hangar Door Alternative
At Springbank Airport outside of Calgary, every single hangar built in the last 10 years was fitted with a bifold door. When Central Aviation of Calgary was considering building their new hangar at Springback, they decided to look for alternative door solution. As owners of other hangars, they had suffered from maintenance related problems in the past. Colin McCloud of Central Aviation said that their main drive shaft had snapped in half twice. These near catastrophic events have forced Central Aviation into an aggressive maintenance program averaging around $5000 per year per door.
The new hangar required an opening of 80ft wide by 19ft high. Central aviation was looking for a cost effective solution. The building size and shape easily enabled the door to roll open inside the building. To keep cost down, fewer door blades are always a better solution. Spec-Dor proposed it’s new ECO design 4 blade Slide-to-one-side hangar door solution.
This design requires only one blade to be motorized. The motorized blade picks up the other trailing door blades until the entire door moves into a single door pocket or storage area. The modular design of the door panels, bottom rails and top tracks allows the door to be easily and quickly bolted together on-site. The ECO’s strong and reliable hardware can be easily utilized with many different door configurations and wind loads rendering considerable cost savings.
It is important to remember that a bottom rolling hangar door has upper and lower tracks on which the door runs. The bottom track or rail carries the weight of the door. The building has only the weight of the top track to carry as opposed to the entire weight of the door as with the bifold door. As a result, the bottom rolling hangar door imposes less loads on the building. The bottom rolling hangar door however, has more components than a bifold door namely: upper tracks and bottom rails as opposes to a couple of hinges. The purchase cost of a bottom rolling hangar door normally approaches the price of a bifold door when the width exceeds 60ft and the height exceeds 20ft.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Spec-Dor’s ECO bottom rolling hangar door is price comparable with a bifold door when looking at larger sizes. In addition Spec-Dor’s ECO bottom rolling hangar door has less impact on building design than a bi-fold door rendering further construction cost savings. Lastly, Spec-Dor’s ECO bottom rolling hangar door can never damage an aircraft once the door is opened.
Drives and Controls
Spec-Dor’s ECO design for Central Aviation included rail flashings, variable speed drives and limit switches used as position sensors.
Rail flashings offer the benefits of better drainage, lower operating cost, precise door operation, longer door life and easier maintenance.
Variable speed drives and position sensors allow the door to be accelerated and decelerated in a controlled manner. This leads to safer door operation and longer motor life.
If you are looking for an alternative to unreliable bifold hangar doors, contact SpecDor and we’ll be glad to help you.
BI-PARTING HANGAR DOORS ASSOCIATED
PAINTERS, SPOKANE
SpecDor designed and manufactured the hangar doors for Associated Painters’ new hangar for aircraft maintenance and painting, situated in Spokane, Washington. For this project, SpecDor worked with architects LMN Architecture and contractor Garco Construction Inc.The opening of the building was 180 feet (54.86 metres) wide by 48 feet (14.63 metres) high. This required a bi-parting hangar door using three blades on each side. A dual drive system with two motors per side was specified along with four-wheel drive to increase traction.
Bi-parting Southern Configuration
The building was designed with no pocket spaces to house the blades inside the building when the doors are open. Hence, a bi-parting Southern design configuration was proposed whereby the blades stack on the outside of the building.
This configuration is typically used in climates where snow and ice is not a concern as the hardware and bottom rails are exposed to the elements.
Bi-parting Northern Configuration
Spec-Dor offered an alternative bi-parting Northern design configuration and was able to supply amended building drawings to show how this could be efficiently incorporated into the existing building design.The bi-parting Northern configuration ensures that when the doors are closed, the bottom rails are completed protected from the outside weather. This is essential in climates subject to snow and ice.
Brush Weather Stripping
Brush weather stripping comes standard with Spec-Dor doors. It helps prevent dust and dirt entering the building and also helps keep the heat in (or out in hot climates).
Rail Flashing
The rail flashing option was selected as it provides many benefits during installation and during the life of the building. Installation times are reduced as the rail flashings eliminate the need for concrete forms prior to pouring or grouting the rails. Concrete can be poured the same day as the rails are set, saving time and money.Rail flashings prevent chipping and erosion of the concrete around the rail and provide a smooth and level crossing for equipment and aircraft. The uniform, frictionless surface of the flashings is ideal for the brush weather stripping to slide along and form a good seal. This has the added benefit of greatly enhancing the life of the weather stripping.
Heated Rails
In the end, the bi-parting southern configuration was chosen as the climate of Spokane was not considered harsh enough to warrant the extra cost of the Northern configuration.
Unfortunately, Spokane suffered the snowiest November on record in 2010 with 25.7 inches of snow. Luckily, with Spec-Dor’s revolutionary design, the bottom rails can be retrospectively fitted with sill track heating elements. The integrated pull pits allow the heating cables to be installed and provide easy access for through-life maintenance. If the record snowfall is an indication of future climate change, this could prove to be a very attractive option indeed!
AIRCRAFT HANGAR DOORS
RIZON JET
Spec-Dor designed and managed the installation of aircraft hangar doors for Rizon Jet’s hangar at Doha International Airport in Qatar. Spec-Dor worked with architects and engineers, Dheya Towfiqi Engineering Consultancy Bureau based in Bahrain. The installation was carried out by local contractor, Midmac Contracting Co.
AIRCRAFT HANGAR DOORS
RIZON JET
Spec-Dor designed and managed the installation of aircraft hangar doors for Rizon Jet’s hangar at Doha International Airport in Qatar. Spec-Dor worked with architects and engineers, Dheya Towfiqi Engineering Consultancy Bureau based in Bahrain. The installation was carried out by local contractor, Midmac Contracting Co.
Custom Hangar Door Design
Rizon Jet provides private luxury jet charter services to executives, VIPs, diplomats and government officials. They required a luxurious and purpose-built VIP terminal at the Doha International Airport.
The hangar was designed with four hangar door openings arranged as two pairs on opposite sides of the building. Each pair was 97.4m wide by 10.1m high. No door pockets were designed into the building, so the doors had to be contained in the opening. This required the custom hangar door design to use multi-directional hangar doors.
Multi-directional Hangar Doors
A multi-directional hangar door comprises several sections or blades that can each move independently. For the Rizon Jet hangar, a minimum 50% opening was required, so Spec-Dor proposed a 2-blade solution. As only two blades were required, only two sets of tracks and rails were needed keeping costs lower than if three or more blades were used. However, the blades were considerably wider and heavier than a typical hangar door blade.
Hangar Door Safety
Each blade was 50m wide by 10m high, making them wider than a typical hangar door blade of around 10m width. This increased width also meant that the blades were heavier than usual at around 15 metric tonnes. This was the total weight of the steel structure and 7 tonnes of cladding. The increased weight meant that more powerful motors were designed to move the blades at a top speed of around 1ft/s. An important factor in hangar door safety is the ability to be able to stop a blade moving in a short distance. To achieve this, Spec-Dor consulted electronics experts to design a dual-braking system combining traditional disc brakes with a dynamic braking system that dissipates energy through a resistor bank. The parameters of this dynamic braking system could be fine tuned on-site during installation, to achieve the desired deceleration.
Hangar Door Cladding
The luxury hangar is fully air-conditioned and outside temperatures at Doha are often around 40C. Hence, the hangar doors needed to be insulated. The hangar door cladding comprised composite panels made of outer steel layers surrounding an insulating layer rated at R21. This is the type of insulation often used in Canadian hangar doors but for the reverse purpose of keeping the heat in and the cold out!Designing aircraft hangar doors for the luxury VIP terminal at Doha International Airport challenged Spec-Dor’s expertise. But, with more than 32 years of hangar door manufacturing experience, Spec-Dor were able to deliver the best aircraft hangar door solution.
AIRPLANE HANGAR DOORS
EXELTECH AEROSPACE
Spec-Dor’s project to design and install airplane hangar doors at Exeltech presented a number of unique challenges not least because the hangar structure was made from wood.
Exeltech Aerospace is a maintainer of commercial jets, based at Pierre Elliot Trudeau airport in Montreal, Canada. The contractor in charge of constructing their new hangar was Les enterprises J.G.Guimond Inc. It was decided the most economical solution for the hangar was to build the structure in wood using the expertise of building contractors Nordic Engineered Wood.
The airplane hangar doors were 40m in length and 10.6m high with a tail-fin door in the centre measuring 4.4m by 3m. The building was designed with space for door pockets, and required four doors – one on each side of the building. Spec-Dor proposed a 4 blade bi-parting door solution for each of the four doors. For the tail-fin doors, regular urethane insulated garage doors with openers were proposed. This is an oft-used solution requiring only that the opener controls be integrated into the control panel.
Custom Hangar Door Fixings
The building was designed with no pocket spaces to house the blades inside the building when the doors are open. Hence, a bi-parting Southern design configuration was proposed whereby the blades stack on the outside of the building.
This configuration is typically used in climates where snow and ice is not a concern as the hardware and bottom rails are exposed to the elements.
Heated Rails
Heated rails are a must in Canada’s harsh winter climate. This installation benefited from Spec-Dor’s unique heating conduits fitted between the bottom rails. These conduits have pull pits for easy access to allow maintenance of the heating wires throughout the life of the door. The heating wires can even be replaced if necessary unlike other installations where the wires are embedded in concrete.
The final result was four sets of doors that complemented the wooden structure of the hangar while meeting all functional and maintainability requirements. This project required Spec-Dor’s expertise and experience in airplane hangar door design, manufacture and installation.
OTHER CIVIL
AVIATION PROJECTS
Spec-Dor designs, builds and installs a wide variety of hangar doors for civil aviation clients.
Skyservice Toronto
Westjet Edmonton Canadian Aviation Museum
Ocean Industries Bell Helicopter
Vertically stacking door still functioning 20 years later.
Air Spray
OMF Aviation
Boeing
Conif Air
