{"id":5728,"date":"2013-01-17T17:52:53","date_gmt":"2013-01-18T01:52:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.mechadigital.net\/?p=1252"},"modified":"2021-08-26T20:37:59","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T20:37:59","slug":"hangar-doors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/hangar-doors\/","title":{"rendered":"#48 Hangar Doors"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Note to our readers: \u00a0“Hangar Doors” is one of the stories that is featured in our audio CD, “Nuts from a Blind Squirrel”. \u00a0As one of the most popular stories on that CD, we thought we’d put it on the site in its written form. \u00a0I hope you enjoy it. \u00a0Brian.)<\/p>\n

Most hangars are used to store airplanes.\u00a0 Their doors are normally closed and as you travel down a row of them you will never know what\u2019s in there unless the door is open and someone is moving their airplane in or out.\u00a0 But hangars are used for more than just shelter for airplanes.\u00a0 There is an old wheeze that there are as many boats as there are airplanes in hangars.\u00a0 But many hangars become more than a storage place.\u00a0 They become a place where an airplane is rebuilt or created.\u00a0 They become shops and thereby extensions of the people who use them.\u00a0 They also beckon to those who are fascinated by airports, airplanes and pilots.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I think that a hangar door is more than just the device which seals the building from the elements.\u00a0 I think that at most airports, the hangar door has become a neon sign.\u00a0 When the door opens, the neon buzzes to life.\u00a0 The sign beckons, saying, \u201chey, check this out!\u00a0 There\u2019s something interesting going on in here!\u201d<\/p>\n

At the very least, the open door will invite the viewer to finally see what kind of airplane lives there.\u00a0 At the most, it will reveal the activity of someone creating a new flying machine or rebuilding an old one.\u00a0 It will draw some people like a moth to a flame.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know why, but this has both fascinated and bothered me for years.\u00a0 I have often labored in a stuffy hangar behind a closed door when I would rather have opened it.\u00a0 But I knew that, depending on the airport, that open door would attract the distracters.\u00a0 You see, some of us can either work or we can visit.\u00a0 It\u2019s difficult for us to do both.\u00a0 So as soon as the open door beckons a curious visitor, all work stops as long as the visitor is there and we are indulging in idle conversation.\u00a0 But some people can handle this distraction and actually turn it to their advantage.<\/p>\n

Denny Parsons was one of those people.\u00a0 Denny had an impeccable aviation pedigree.\u00a0 An airline pilot who was the son of an ag pilot, Denny was building a Hatz biplane in his hangar at a Florida airport.\u00a0 Denny left his hangar door wide open and the Geezer Patrol flocked to it.\u00a0 In fact, if Denny\u2019s hangar was open, I could be sure that I would find him working away while three or four airport bums sat around and visited, sometimes including Denny in their conversation, sometimes commenting on his project.\u00a0 Denny never saw them as a distraction.\u00a0 Occasionally he\u2019d nod or grunt to remain involved, but he never stopped what he was doing.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t slow him down a bit.\u00a0 And, when the inevitable chore arose that required another set of hands or perhaps a strong back, there they were, ready to help.\u00a0 To this day I have always admired Denny\u2019s ability to handle the open hangar door.<\/p>\n

The hangar door is just part of the attraction that so many airports have.\u00a0 Old guys will travel for miles just to wander into an airport.\u00a0 I was never more aware of this phenomenon than when I ran the Sunriver\u00a0 Airport.\u00a0 That year and a half or so gave me a unique vantage point from which to observe the Geezer Patrol, Airport Bums and the whole society of airplane lovers.\u00a0 One of the behaviors that used to drive me nuts was that of the old guy who would drive in, leave his car and wife in the parking lot and then wander into the little terminal building and fall right in with the local airport bums.\u00a0 It took me a while to realize how many wives were left in cars out in the parking lot and when I realized how often that was the case, it annoyed me.\u00a0 I guess I thought it was disrespectful.\u00a0 One day a transient bum I\u2019d never met before was chatting away with our locals and I looked out the door to see a woman sitting in a car.\u00a0 \u201cIs that your wife out there?\u201d I asked.\u00a0 He nodded that it was and continued on with some flying story.\u00a0 I went out to the parking lot.\u00a0 The window was down and she sat there with a magazine.<\/p>\n

\u201cHi\u201d, I greeted.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m sorry that you\u2019ve been left out here.\u00a0 Would you like to come in the terminal and relax?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, no, but thanks.\u00a0 He\u2019s in there with a bunch of flying people and, if you don\u2019t mind me saying, it\u2019s boring as hell!\u00a0 I\u2019m happy as a clam out here with my reading.\u00a0 I don\u2019t mind at all.\u00a0 But thank you\u201d.<\/p>\n

I guess her reply pretty much said it all.\u00a0 I had stumbled into a relationship that was well-established and acceptable to both parties.\u00a0 At least in that case.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I recently traveled to the Medford Airport in Medford, Oregon.\u00a0 That airport has history for me.\u00a0 Many years ago, Bill Warren and I were hanging cameras on airplanes and working out of an old wooden hangar on that airport.\u00a0 People would drive by all the time, attracted by that open door and the interesting activities inside.\u00a0 No more.<\/span>At that airport we used to see the old guys all the time.\u00a0 They\u2019d drive down our little driveway into the airport and past the hangar row.\u00a0 They\u2019d motor slowly into the parking lot and stare at the ramp.\u00a0 Then they\u2019d circle slowly and drive right out again, their little pilgrimage complete.\u00a0 I saw that ceremony repeated again and again, no matter at what airport I was currently staying.\u00a0 Even now, while on a sleepy little residential airpark on a dead end road, I occasionally see that slow drive-by<\/span>.\u00a0 And if my hangar door is open, they will sometimes drive in and stop for a visit.\u00a0 This practice was described wonderfully by Tracy Thurman in his story, \u201cOne Last Flight\u201d which we featured in the Tailwheeler\u2019s Journal.<\/span>
\nThat hangar was scraped away several years ago.\u00a0 The entire airport is now encircled with a fence.\u00a0 Coded gates keep terrorists from planting bombs in all those Cubs, Champs and T-Crafts which are kept safe from them in those locked hangars.\u00a0 The TSA, the FAA and all those other initialized bureaucrats have done a pretty good job of making sure that the casual terrorists can\u2019t get in (we all know that the determined ones can still get in any time they want).\u00a0 Never again will the airport kid be able to peddle down the hangar row and maybe fan the ember of his aerial ambition to a full flame.\u00a0 Not at Medford anyway.\u00a0 Never again will an old guy who\u2019d fought in the sky over Europe, Viet Nam or Korea be able to wander by and strike up a conversation with like-minded codgers.\u00a0 Not at Medford anyway.The little airports are all we have left.\u00a0 The little airports with their hangars, some of which have open doors.Like so many of the parts that make up the aviation life, the hangar door sometimes serves to teach us a lesson.\u00a0 Are we REALLY too busy to meet a stranger and visit for a bit?\u00a0 Well, maybe sometimes we are.\u00a0 But I always ask myself that question when deciding whether to open or close the hangar door.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Epilogue<\/p>\n

Denny eventually finished his Hatz biplane.\u00a0 It won \u201cBest Plans-Built Airplane\u201d at the EAA Fly-In at Lakeland, Florida.\u00a0 Quite an honor.\u00a0 A tribute to Denny\u2026 and his airport bums.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Note to our readers: \u00a0“Hangar Doors” is one of the stories that is featured in our audio CD, “Nuts from a Blind Squirrel”. \u00a0As one of the most popular stories on that CD, we thought we’d put it on the site in its written form. \u00a0I hope you enjoy it. \u00a0Brian.) Most hangars are used […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1259,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5728"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}