How long are hangar waiting lists?

[SNKDTR]

The city controls my airport and many in the county are even unaware of its existence.We recently did a group of 6 EAA Young Eagles flights and only 2 of the parents were aware of the airport prior to our involvement with the Young Eagles.

This inspite of 2 recent very sucessful "wings on display" days in the past 2 years.

The airport has the available land (it seems) but the City leaders seem uninterested in the investment of hanger building

 

[M20K]

So tell me this. Why cant airports build new hangars since there is such a high demand? They have the land..... plenty of it.

Being involved with a couple of airports, often there is a secret unofficial and non public version of the Master Plan where airport management is looking at a "some day" possible expansion. Be it more or longer runways, moving the tower (or building a tower). Not something they ever put in writing because it is not in any kind of planning stage. But if you build hangars where the crossing or parallel runway COULD be... it will never be if the land is used for something else.

 

[FormerHangie]

The average taxpaying voter doesn't give two wits about the airport and its service, especially for general aviation. They want parks, they want streets, they want fire and police protection, most don't even know their town has an airport unless it has commercial service. And they certainly aren't willing to invest in hangars so "wealthy" airplane owners can have cheap hangar rent. In some cases cheaper than the local mini storage is charging them!

Hangars on a publicly owned airport are an odd situation, in that you have a private amenity on a public facility. If you want to come and land at that airport, that fits nicely in the public use of public facility. The hangar lessee gets exclusive use of a publicly owned building, and it's the airport's responsibility to make sure that the amount charged covers all the costs of building and maintaining the hangar.

 

[midwestpa24]

Hangars on a publicly owned airport are an odd situation, in that you have a private amenity on a public facility. If you want to come and land at that airport, that fits nicely in the public use of public facility. The hangar lessee gets exclusive use of a publicly owned building, and it's the airport's responsibility to make sure that the amount charged covers all the costs of building and maintaining the hangar.

Sounds simple in theory doesn't it? I've done the math time and time again. We would need to charge over $1,000 a month to cover the building costs of T-hangars, not even factoring maintenance overhead. The state average is closer to $250. If our airport charged $1,000, we would have a lot of empty hangars and be accused of being anti-General Aviation, a bunch of money hungry bureaucrats.

Now if a bunch of pilots/owners came to the airport and city and said charge whatever it takes, we will pay it, for hangars, it would be done.

The airport has the available land (it seems) but the City leaders seem uninterested in the investment of hanger building

In some cases it isn't a lack of interest, but lack of funding. Cities and counties can't print imaginary money, it has to come from taxes and grants from somewhere. I can't speak for every locality, but the ability of cities to increase revenue is finite and getting more restrictive every year. Our city is looking at potential service cuts across the board over the next 5 years, largely due to the very popular property tax reforms passed by the state. No one wants to pay property taxes, myself included, but that is what cities depend on to provide the basic services we take for granted.

 

[737steve]

It is striking how much politics is involved in simply renting a hangar in some areas. In nearly 50 years of involvement in general aviation, I've never had a problem finding hangar space. In 1992, I built my own hangar on my own property. I didn't want to drive to the airport anymore.

 

[kyleb]

Sounds simple in theory doesn't it? I've done the math time and time again. We would need to charge over $1,000 a month to cover the building costs of T-hangars, not even factoring maintenance overhead. The state average is closer to $250. If our airport charged $1,000, we would have a lot of empty hangars and be accused of being anti-General Aviation, a bunch of money hungry bureaucrats.

Ours just went up by 50% plus making the hangar renters provide fire extinguishers (not a big deal) and coordinate annual extinguisher inspections (horribly inefficient for 50 renters to manage that hangar by hangar).

I think we'll see some movement. Once again, I'm trying to figure out if it is feasable to store both of my planes in a 24x42 (IIRC) box hangar. The 24' dimension is the problem - there's no depth to stagger the aircraft.