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Since 1971, Canadian Airmotive has provided aviation
products and services to the aviation industry around the
world. Its product offering includes clean air heaters,
invented and manufactured by Canadian Airmotive and sold to
militaries in Canada, the United States, and other
militaries abroad.
At its manufacturing facility located at the Ottawa Airport,
Canadian Airmotive is home to a fabric covered helicopter
hangar, originally purchased for cold air storage. Most
recently, the company has decided to have it insulated, add
bi-fold doors, and utilize it year-round as a fabric covered
aircraft hangar maintenance building. "We're quite happy
with this facility," says Ron Williams, president, "it's a
bright place to work. We are going to end up with an
approximate R-12 insulation factor, and then we'll put some
heat in it, some fans and so forth, so it can be used on a
year-round basis."
The 50' by 50' fabric building hangar provides Canadian
Airmotive with 2500 square feet of working space. The fabric
covered aircraft building includes a small office with all
the necessary operational requirements including fax,
internet, and phone. "We have no objections from the staff
working in this building, they find it bright and cheerful,"
says Williams. "It's cool in the summertime, and it doesn't
get exceedingly hot. Even in January and February, without
insulation, we find that if it's a nice sunny day, the
building is not that cold inside from the radiant heat of
the sun."
Five years ago, when Canadian Airmotive needed a helicopter
storage building, Williams looked into using a fabric
building. "Interestingly enough, I saw fabric covered
buildings start to pop up around the neighborhood. I pulled
in at the Heather Hills Golf Course, three or four miles
from here to ask questions about their fabric covered
building. Two and a half months later, we had this
facility up and running."
The building size was carefully selected to maximize storage
space for the aircraft. "We selected this size building
because we operate a 3 bladed rotor system which requires a
minimum of a 30 foot door expansion to get in the building
and leave the rotor blades on," says Williams. "We've had as
many as 9 aircraft in here and still have plenty of room to
walk around, maintain and work on the aircraft, open the
accessory doors and so forth."
The helicopter fabric storage hangar building has proved to
be an efficient storage space and its versatility will now
prove to be beneficial as a maintenance facility for
Canadian Airmotive. The features of the fabric building are
ideal for both applications. "Everybody's quite amazed at
how bright and solid it is even in the most windy conditions
that we get here in Ottawa," shares Williams. "And we have
not had condensation in this fabric building accumulate to
the amount where it actually drips. We don't at this time
have any extra fans to evacuate the air in the building.
We've had the building for 5 years now, had absolutely no
problems with it, and we're quite satisfied with its
performance."
"Everybody's quite
amazed at how bright and solid it is even in the most
windy conditions that we get here in Ottawa."
- Ron Williams,
President, Canadian
Airmotive
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