As Freeland, Michigan’s MBS International Airport expands, Dow Corning Corporation officials hope to lease 150,000 square feet of land on which to build a new hangar to support their global operations. More than half of Dow Corning’s sales are outside the U.S.

From the Bay City Times on June 1st:

”We decided there was a need for an upgraded hangar just because we’re growing globally and the need for mobility as we’re serving customers around the globe,” he said.

The MBS International Airport Commission will hold a special meeting today to vote on a lease agreement. The proposed contract stipulates that Dow Corning would pay the publicly-owned airport about $55,000 a year for a 150,000-square-foot piece of land.

Airport Manager Jeff Nagel said Dow Corning would build its own hangar facility on that land, forgoing the need for Dow Corning to continue leasing hangar space from the airport. Dow Corning’s expansion plans come at the same time MBS is proposing to building a new $48 million terminal.

UPDATE:

The airport commission approved the lease agreement, which will bring $55,000 in land lease payments to the airport each year.  Dow Corning will begin construction on its new hangar very soon and complete it within a year.

From the Midland Daily News:

Having its own hangar reflects the global and domestic growth of Dow Corning, Erpelding said. The new hangar will be an investment that will meet the company’s needs long term.

Corporate travel by local companies declined markedly after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. That trend is reversing.

“We have an increasing need to travel as we continue to grow,” Erpelding said.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the schooner C.A. Thayer has been rechristened following its $14M restoration.

The Thayer was taken out of the water and rebuilt at a former airplane hangar in Alameda. The project, said historian Steve Canright, “is a piece of wooden shipbuilding that has not been seen in this country since … World War I.” Canright is the historian for the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, which owns the ship.

From Associated Content, the latest in a string of alternative uses for hangars is an indoor park with a not-so-obvious theme: Charles Dickens.

Dickens World ride attractions will include the Haunted House of Ebenezer Scrooge, Fagin’s Den of Thieves, and The Great Expectations-themed boat ride based on the escape of Magwitch the convict. The $116 million project was the dream of theme park designer Gerry O’Sullivan-Beare in cooperation with the Dickens Fellowship. Former Fellowship joint secretary Thelma Grove acted as consultant on the theme park.
Dickens World is located in the port town of Chatham Maritime near Medway, where Dickens spent a portion of his childhood. Paradoxically, the park has been constructed inside a huge modern aluminum airplane hangar.Step inside and you’ll see a recreation of 19th century archways, cobblestone streets, and sewer; and you’ll be greeted by an assortment of actors portraying Dickens characters as well as a magnificent display of animatronic characters.

In a savvy and progressive intermingling of science and entertainment, NASA’s Ames Research Center recently hosted Yuri’s Night 2007 in honor of the first manned orbit of the Earth 46 years earlier.

Combining interactive exhibits, art displays, and music performances, NASA’s Bay Area celebration joined others around the globe in looking to the future while celebrating our intrepid past, all with an audience it may not have otherwise reached and inspired.

From Fake Science:

I showed up with friends a little on the early side and found myself at a downsized mixture of a technology expo, Burning Man, and a dance party. The event was contained in and around an airplane hangar, and attractions were spread out all over the floor of the inside space and surrounding tarmac. Inside were vending booths selling anything from water, funky clothing to food, as well as a slew of interesting demos.

From the Salt Lake City Weekly’s “Down to the Roadhouse,” by Ted Scheffler:

The Park City Squatters, designed by architect Kin Ng, is a bit sleeker than the downtown Salt Lake City location. It sports a huge deck for warm-weather dining, great views of the Payday ski run at Park City Mountain Resort and a cool 10-seat private booth dubbed the “Brewers Tasting Room,” situated in a newly constructed tower built of reclaimed wood from a World War II airplane hangar in Calgary. Still, the Squatters Roadhouse Grill offers all the warmth and friendly service of the original Squatters, not to mention the same fine beers (see Grapevine, p. 40). And, as with Squatters v1.0, the folks at the Roadhouse Grill are committed to environmentally friendly values which include the use of waterless urinals, high-temp dishwashers, water-wise gardening, energy efficient lighting and recycling of paper products and beer bottles. Why, used brewer’s grains show up in the freshly baked breads at Squatters, and recycled kitchen oils provide bio diesel to run the Squatters delivery truck.

Michigan’s Governor Granholm approved $5M in state funding to assist with the construction of a new hangar at the former Wurtsmith Air Force Base near Oscoda on Monday.  The hangar will be large enough to house 747s, enabling Kalitta Air, a Ypsilanti-based jet cargo carrier, to add 200 technicians to the 570 current employees at Oscoda-Wurtsmith.  Work on 747s had previously been done in Asia.

Oscoda to gain 200 jobs thanks to state funding, The Bay City Times

File under: Coolest thing done with an empty airplane hangar

The Legacy Photo Project has turned an abandoned hangar on the former MCAS El Toro in Irvine, California into the world’s largest camera obscura.  Producing an image 28 feet high and 108 feet wide on a single piece of fabric, Building #115 used to house fighter planes and later, helicopters.

See this article from Photo District News written before the image was exposed.

Stats and background at the Legacy Photo Project website.

From the Peoria Journal Star: 

City Council OKs federal funding eligibility; could mean more hangars 
 

Officials plan to expand the airplane hangar area from 20 hangars to 40 in the next five years to provide more airplane housing. The plan also includes extending secure areas and airspace several miles at each end of the runway to prevent obstructions, such as cell phone towers, Wuellner said.

The converted Crissy Field airmail hangar just received a $1M appropriation to develop the Military Intelligence Service (MIS) Historic Learning Center. The MIS school was responsible for training the Army’s Japanese-American linguists and intelligence specialists before and during World War II. From the Nichi Bei Times:

Attached to every combat unit in the Pacific War, these MIS soldier linguists translated documents, intercepted intelligence, impersonated the enemy in battle, gathered key intelligence from prisoners of war, and ultimately helped American and Allied forces win the war in the Pacific. Their intimate knowledge of the language and culture helped gain a tactical and strategic advantage over their opponents.

More info can be found at the National Japanese American Historical Society (NJAHS) site and this National Park Service page.

Photo courtesy of the National Trust for Historic Preservation

This 2002 Brian Hawley photo is incredible – note how the two trucks are dwarfed by the structure.

More photos and an excellent write-up on the hangar (and its wooden counterpart which burned down in 1995) can be found by following the above link to the NE North Carolina page of Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields.

Update: It looks like TCOM, an airship and aerostat manufacturer, is using this structure as its Elizabeth City Manufacturing and Flight Test Facility.  It can house six fully-inflated aerostats and includes a clean room for dust- and pollutant-free fabrication.