Moving the Mountain
Location: Greenville, TXIf you can’t move the aircraft to the hangar, then move the hangar to the aircraft.
This defense contractor had a problem, they needed to run extensive test series outdoors but also needed to protect valuable assets in inclement weather.
Moving the aircraft meant stopping the tests, disconnecting all of the instrumentation before even starting the move, then doing the whole thing in reverse to start over when the weather cleared. This process proved to be very time consuming and extremely expensive. But what to do?
Alamo Door partnered with a tension membrane fabric building manufacturer to design and build a moveable shelter system that could move over the aircraft when needed. The shelters are made in two halves the overlap at the center and each half is driven independently of the other. This allows for the nose or tail or center of the aircraft to be exposed individually or the entire system can be driven back to expose the entire aircraft.
To control these large structures custom software was created and encoder feedback technology was used to verify the position of the shelters at all times as well as to ensure each drive system is continuously communicating with each other in order to stay coordinated.
The drives also automatically engage a lockdown system after a preset time, to lock the shelters in place in winds of up to 120 mph.
The best part the customer was so pleased with the first two they ordered a third project for even larger aircraft.