Hyderabad: Inflatable hangar comes up for aircraft maintenance

Shamshabad: The MRO (Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul) division of GMR Aero Technic (GAT) and GMR Air Cargo and Aerospace Engineering Limited (GACAEL), has taken a leap in terms of aircraft maintenance and service in Asia, by adopting a technology in the form of an Inflatable Hangar on Tuesday. The 'Inflatable Hangar' maybe used for multiple purposes including scheduled and unscheduled maintenance, engine or landing gear replacement.

According to the GMR Group,the one bay narrow body hangar is sufficient to take one B737 or A320 series aircraft which will add one additional bay to GAT's already existing seven- bay capacity. With this additional line, GAT would be able to handle additionally 15 to 20 smaller base maintenance checks or four to five end of lease checks per year.

It takes considerable amount of time to source an available hangar to undertake the unscheduled repairs. On the contrary, an Inflatable Hangar is cost-effective, reduces downtime to a minimum and saves time and money as compared to building a conventional hangar, at the same time catering for all the functionality, safety features and structural stability of the conventional hangar.

Ashok Gopinath, CEO, GMR Aero Technic, said, "The latest edition of this Inflatable Hangar to our MRO will meet timelines and commitments of aircraft operations and redeliveries. Such hangars are used as a proper alternative to conventional hangars by MROs in Europe and GCC for many years now. In the long term, we are looking at adding a couple of more hangars aimed at upgrading to include wide-body aircraft capability including painting, certain critical components workshops and military MRO business."

The Inflatable Hangar is formed by low-pressure tubes aligned parallel to each other forming a "rib-cage" structure. This woven polyester base cloth with PVC coating hangar is both fire-retardant and waterproof. An Automatic Control System will be installed in the hangar, to continuously monitor and control operative parameters. The hangar is designed to withstand wind speeds up to 158.4 km/hr and can handle temperatures from -30 degree Celsius to +70 degree Celsius which makes it a perfect alternative for conventional solid metal hangars which are both expensive and time-consuming to build.

The Inflatable Hangar will serve as a base maintenance facility complementing the existing facility in GMR Aero Technic in Hyderabad and help in optimizing the already available resources in terms of manpower, tooling, support workshop. The Inflatable Hangar is equipped with doors, lighting, fire detection & extinguishing and ventilation system with centralised computer-based monitoring system including remote diagnostics. It is designed and built for regular continuous usage.