Don’t be envious. The whole project of an airstrip at home followed by the hangar has taken me about 10 years to pull it off. The Isle of Man is not over regulated like Europe (we are not in Europe) but these things are still not easy even here. Certainly, the environmental element helped both with permission for my house and then the hangar. No chance without it.
The planners here largely follow the UK rules but amazingly they try to help. I visited them and explained exactly what I wanted and tried to make it fit the planning laws with their assistance. The island has a slogan “freedom to flourish”. I kept quoting that when things got difficult. They eventually said, you can do it providing we get no complaints from the neighbours. Fortunately (we are in the country) my neighbour on one side is deaf and on the other side works with the Isle of Man aircraft registry so again I’m lucky.
Cost of the basic hangar: £50k
Cost of block work, floor and heatpump £12k
Yes, back to hangars, it’s such an exciting topic… :)
I have been to STOLman’s hangar and it is amazing.
If I could I would build such a set-up tomorrow. It would pay for itself in no time, in the saved hassle, cheaper maintenance, and one gets so much more out of one’s plane.
Of course I would also need to build a runway. This is possible, and it’s another complicated subject.
As to the comment that one would not want to live anywhere where this is possible, well, this is probably why airparks have not taken off in Europe, and the ones elsewhere tend to be communities which don’t want too many movements.
STOLman, that seems like very good value to me. People in the US are paying two or three times that to build large hangars at public airports in popular areas, often with some kind of furnished living quarters above in which you often can’t legal reside due to airport usage restrictions. You need another address. The bigger issue for me (and others who don’t want to throw away cash) is that you don’t own the land and at the end of the 20-30 year lease period you have to renegotiate the lease for the land under the structure you bought years many ago. Or you can give your property to the government and walk away. I think mostly the people who go down this road are planning to be carried away before they have to walk away!..
I rent my hangar for about $400/month, and hope to do so indefinitely. I can get two planes inside, plus some motorcycles and a car or two. I have a furnished area and will be there with family this weekend having a barbecue. Everybody likes it including the dog and it makes my aircraft ownership an entirely different experience than it would otherwise be.
To be honest, I was astonished just how cheap the basic building was. The frame is not a traditional I beam construction, everything is made from bending and forming galvanised sheet, then it’s all bolted together with 16mm bolts. The Kingspan panels ( plastic coated thin steel sheet either side of 150mm insulation, bonded together) are structural in their own right so the whole structure becomes a strong box when finished. It’s a clever and cheap system.
The panels are screwed to the frame using tech screws. These have thread at each end so you cannot squash this insulation when you drive them home with an impact driver. I am well impressed with it. The block woks was done separately after the building went up.
It should be fairly easy to do something like that in the UK because you are allowed to land outside of official airfields. In Germany it is prohibited to land outside of airfields and getting an airfield permission is next to impossible. The further away from civilization, the easier to find a nice aviation environment. Over here in the densely operated regions, it’s impossible. I am extremely lucky with my single box hangar and to be honest, I bought the airplane because of the hangar, I didn’t even know what exact airplane model it was, I wanted the hangar…
Peter wrote:
this is probably why airparks have not taken off in Europe,
Haven’t they? There’s a good few operational, especially in France. Probably less than in them US of A but then everything is bigger over there, as I understand.
But regarding airparks we had better hear our resident specialist, and perhaps better in a separate thread, if the subject must really be discussed over and again?
Well, this is the hangar of a good friend of mine in Wichita Falls, TX… stunt pilot Tom Danaher, who died 90 years old in September 2014 … and I can’t get over the dear that all this will be demolished one day (I better not show you the inside of the hangar and apartment). The Goose (that appeared in some movies) is already sold … about his other airplanes I don’t know
Nothing to boast about, this is Hangar 1 at Andrewsfield, just like the shot of the Super Cub hanging out with the two resident Pitts S-1S.
!! 
