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Aviation History
1954
1954 - 0166.PDF
; s2 <u aid OK ; 5Z H 2< 3> ST i- | £ s a < NO 6 BAY 8 ELIZABETHAN DOCK i§ IF < W -1 h- 0. Z LAUNDRY > PAINT I '"•'•' ""to EASTERN APRON NO 7 BAY NO 8 BAY NO. 9 BAY AIRCRAFT HANGAR BAYS (DIMENSIONS - LENGTH SOO'-HKIOTH IIO'MEIGHT XV) can: NO IO BAY PROJECTED UNDERGROUND ENGINE TE5T BED STORES 41 HANDLING YARD _ini • : 1 "" RADIO INSTRUMENT ELECTRICAL WORKSHOPS .... F^-T 1 • ....... :. COMPRESSOR ROOM ROADWAY JtUJ'tEJ. ENGINE OVERHAUL (UNCOMPLETED) 'EST ROOMS • MAIN ENTRANCE ID ENGINEERING ADMIN BLOCK SWITCH, ROOMS | INFLAMMABLE STO DETAIL |S|U BASSEMBLV'POWER PLANT BUILD JMAINPLANE SECTION IMABLE |ai_|t"'!« |TY,!ELT„„C „l 9J! VIEW RE r1 , P6**!. !m iT°RE ["J J™*" AND SA BAY SALVAGE PROCESS CLEANING I AND DE-GREASING UPHOLSTERY J^TORESJ MACHINE SHOP SAFETY EQUIP I MAIN ENTRANCE | TO MAINTENANCE BLOCK -~©> AIRCRAFT HANGAR BAYS NO 3 BAY NO. 4 BAY NO. 5 BAY WESTERN APRON 0 50 NO 2 BAY 200 80 B.E.A.'s ENGINEERING BASE AIRLINE executives from many nations have inspected and admired B.E.A.'s £21m engineering base at London Air port, now a familiar landmark. Work on the site began in September 1950, and the first of the ten hangar bays was opened in April 1952. Finishing touches are now being added to the tenth bay and the canteen, and next month should see the end of the builders' labours. About 1,100 B.E.A. staff have been transferred to L.A.P. from Northolt over the past two years. In addition to the engineering staff employed there on minor and major maintenance of Vikings, Viscounts and Elizabethans, the base houses the project and development, purchasing and administration departments—all of whom will obviously benefit from their close proximity to engineering work on the Corpora tion's new aircraft. The B.E.A. instrument and electrical sections have not yet taken up their new quarters, and although engine overhaul facilities are incorporated there is no immediate plan to make use of them. In most other respects the transfer process is nearing completion. As the illustrations show, the engineering base has two large hangar buildings, each split into five bays, and each backed by a workshop building. Office accommodation is mainly at first-floor level. Pre-stressed concrete has been used extensively in the construction of both hangars and workshops; the hangar roofs are of pressed aluminium sheeting. Electric overhead cranes travel the entire 900ft length of hangars and workshops. Working conditions at the base are impressive. High-intensity fluorescent tubes give clear light without shadows, and heating is by a high-pressure hot water system. Warm water pipes buried in the hangar floors ensure a quick return to a comfortable tem perature at working levels even after the huge hangar doors have been opened in cold weather. The ground-floor layout of the base is shown in the plan view at the head of the page. An idea of its size is given by the silhou ette of an Elizabethan (span, 115ft). Dimen sions of the two sets of hangar bays are: length, 900ft; width, 110ft; height, 30ft.; each of the ten bays has electrically operated Esavian folding doors spanning 150ft. Superficially, the base ap peared almost complete when this photograph was taken from a 3.E.A. heli copter late last year. Claimed by the Corpora tion to be "possibly the best maintenance base existing anywhere", the building is situated in No. 1 Maintenance Area on the south-east side of London Airport.
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