Backcountry Pilot

[Stol offline]

I just installed a 14' X 34' one piece Schweiss hydraulic door for the search and rescue heli business this month... It works surprising well but... it took some serious homebrewed engineering to stiffen up the 35 year old hangar so the building would support it.... And,, it was pricey...

I would post some pics but for the life of me I cannot figure out how to add pics to a post.

[hotrod180 offline]

A couple hangars at my airport have hydroswing doors. They've had at least one incident where the door hooked a parked-too-close vehicle & raised it up. Also had one of them had the welds attaching the hinges start to fail. And it seems like they put a lot of stress on things with all that door a-hanging out there. A heavy counterbalance would ease that but in turn have it's own cost in weight and stress.
I don't think I'd want a hydroswing. I have rolling doors on my hangar with upper & lower tracks, not the greatest but compared to the alternatives I like them.

[akflyer2001 offline]

Bifold door, if you can weld you can build it. Simple and cheeper to build your self.


Ken

[Bugs66 offline]

Several hydroswing doors at my field and they work great, including mine. They are a superior design to bifold. Bifolds are really Rube Goldberg. All those cables/straps and side locks to get them to open/close. My door seals air tight when closed, provides shade in the summer. I have small windows in hangar door to peek through and make sure nobody parked in front of my door. I have pushed 2 ft of snow out of way in winter. No complaints here. I know of several incidents of bifold doors coming down after cables break. Maybe not with the strap version. I was inside a friend's hangar once when the autolock cables snapped and the cable whipped by my head. They also can ding some vehicles parked in front if too close.

Having said that, if you have the room hard to beat the simplicity and low cost of some nice roller doors.

Looking forward to paying Clear Creek Intl a visit in the future! Nice work James!

[Jaerl offline]

I bought a little house in Canada once on Ebay and the garage had a cool door that was on a track. It rolled around the corner and went down the side of the garage. You could open it with 3 feet of snow against it. Probably would still be shoveling to get a plane out but I thought it was pretty ingenious.

[steve offline]

Pictured is the hangar I put up this spring with the 48 ft X 16 ft Schweiss hydraulic door. It does take some beefing up of the building to handle the weight of the door, but very little lost headroom compared to a bi-fold.

[Super-Maule offline]

Pictured is the hangar I put up this spring with the 48 ft X 16 ft Schweiss hydraulic door. It does take some beefing up of the building to handle the weight of the door, but very little lost headroom compared to a bi-fold.

Steve,
Your place looks awesome! You are indeed a fortunate man. Not much float flying in North Central Idaho, but some around Coeur D'Alene, and Spokane. It is a pretty short season between spring runoff with driftwood then winter ice. I actually sold my wheel skis to help pay for my dozer. The guy that bought them owns the Telkeena Lodge in Alaska. He should get more use out of them than I did. Thanks for the post.

James
Clear Creek, Idaho

[obxbushpilot offline]

The company that makes the Hydroswing doors has burned a lot of people including my neighbor.

I just googled it and these articles came up. My neighbor wrote this on the Flightware forum:
http://discussions.flightaware.com/view ... p?p=125460

This article also came up in the search:

http://www.marshallindependent.com/page ... l?nav=5015

[Bugs66 offline]

The company that makes the Hydroswing doors has burned a lot of people including my neighbor.
...

Hydroswing is out of business, a once great company run into ground by greed. Other manufacturers make them now including Schweiss, Hifold. Same door design basically. One guy on my hangar row fabricated one on site.

[courierguy offline]

My dealings with HydroSwing were very satisfactory, they were on time and on budget, no surprises whatsoever. Sounds like something changed for the worse, too bad.

I had to laugh about the so called problem of snow, and the damage to anything parked in the way....no amount of snow will stop mine, but before I close it again I make sure I get all traces around the closure points cleared off, otherwise it compacts it into ice and doesn't seal tight, this takes maybe 30 seconds. If I was stupid enough to park my car inside the swing zone, and forgetful enough to open the door, I'd post the pictures here, as my Yaris perched on top the open door would be pretty damn funny! I really like the shade/awning factor in the summer, but mainly I like the fact my 14' high shop has a 14' high entrance thanks to the door design.

[steve offline]

I had ordered and paid in full for a Hydroswing in 2010, to be delivered in 2011. In the spring of 2011 we received a letter from the bankruptcy people in Minnesota that Hydroswing had declared bankruptcy, I called my attorney and went through all the paper work with the court system, but in the end, received nothing. Hydroswing is definately out of business.

James, we have plenty of winter here, but I don't have ski's (though I did double truss so I could lift the plane, just in case). I fly a Cub ( PA12) on skis in the winter and will probably continue using that, rather than go through the hassle of change-over. We really don't have any open country up here, it is all lake flying and the thought of getting a heavy 185 stuck in slush, is less then appealing.

Steve

[lowlevelops offline]

Higher Power Doors look pretty nice and look to be viable option with minimal headroom loss. Their web page is http://www.hpdoors.com I have requested a quote from them on a couple of doors but I haven't gotten anything yet.

I have a 65x18 Hydroswing and it has been a great door, but as mentioned they are no more. I had heard the employees started their own company building doors but have never been able to find anything on them.

[edleg offline]

These guys, if they are still in business:

http://ultimatedoor.homestead.com/ultimate.html

[dayooper offline]

I'm in the hangar design mode as well. My application will be in a high snow environment with no power for awhile. I'm intrigued with the internal sliding door concept.

Links to pics:

Manufactured: http://cool-airinc.com/IS.html
http://www.joea.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5057

DIY: http://www.vincesrocket.com/hangar%20doors.htm

[58Skylane offline]

I know there are such things as heated floors. But any such thing as heated door tracks or thresholds for sliding hangar doors?

[courierguy offline]

The heat loss would be enormous, better to design away the need with a design that doesn't have ANY floor tracks or rollers. Snow country and hangar doors, you don't want anything interacting with the floor, my 2 cents worth.

[58Skylane offline]

The heat loss would be enormous, better to design away the need with a design that doesn't have ANY floor tracks or rollers. Snow country and hangar doors, you don't want anything interacting with the floor, my 2 cents worth.

I see

[dayooper offline]

The internal sliding door works like a curtain with the tracks at the top and not on the floor. However, There needs to be some way to secure the door bottom from side loading (wind), thereby the need for drop pins or the like when door is closed.