Ok. Things have finally slowed down enough on the house that I feel I can spend a little time writing about the hangar.

My next door neighbor at Snake Creek is Marc Bowman. Marc has been kind enough to let us use his hangar for the airplane when we come up as well as for storage. Knowing what we know now, if we were doing this again, the best way to do it would be to build the hangar first and then use that building while working on the house. Luckily, we have a neighbor like Marc that loaned us the use of his hangar.

A big decision that needs to be made with the hangar is the type of door that is going to be used. After looking at several options, I decided on a design by Charles Edwards. Unfortunately, Mr. Edwards went out of business a few years ago, but there are still people building and using the basic design. It is a one piece door (as opposed to a bifold type). The latest improvement to the door comes from Max Watkins in Cookson. Max used hydraulics to operate the door as opposed to the electric motor design used by Mr. Edwards.

That decision made, the size of the hangar was next. We opted for a 54' x 51' building. The panels come in 3 foot sizes, so the most economical use of the materials is in 3 foot segments. That is the largest size I can fit on the lot and still have room for the house without having to move the house too close to the street. I also went with 16' sidewalls to match Marc's hangar next door. I did opt for a 4/12 pitch in the roof to better match the roofline of our house. I will eventually put in an office in the hangar so we allowed for plumbing in the southwest corner of the building. The last decisions involved the placement of various windows, walk thru doors and a double car garage door. Jan came up with the color for the metal. She chose a Sandstone brown and Fern Green.

The original hangar builder was to be TMS Construction owned and operated by David Stratton. As it turns out, Mr. Stratton was (and still is) a thief. He took the money and refused to build the building or return the money. We took him to court on October 4th. He didn't bother to show up, so we got a default judgement against him. About an hour after the case was heard, his lawyer showed up and asked us to drop the judgement because he was about to declare bankruptcy. I am not sure what he was thinking, but there was no advantage to us dropping the judgement. I contacted the local Sheriff and District Attorney to file criminal charges against Mr. Stratton. They were very interested in doing so because of Mr. Stratton's other activities in the area. It seems he has been involved in this type activity for quite a while. The report was taken, however the deputy is a friend of Mr. Stratton, so he didn't really want to arrest him. After several weeks, we finally got the arrest warrant filled out by the D.A and hope to have Mr. Stratton in custody by Christmas.