British Airways has completed the latest trials of a multi-million pound redevelopment of its Heathrow engineering base by using an A380 superjumbo flown in by Airbus to put the hangar through its paces.
The hangars were built in the early 1950s and gained grade II listed status from English Heritage in 1995. Adapting the landmark buildings required great care and skill to preserve the internal unsupported arches which were designed by Sir Evan Owen Williams, Britain’s most significant innovator in the early use of structural concrete and a pioneer in the development of concrete architecture.
At nearly 23m high the hangars could easily accommodate the Boeing 747, but with the arrival of 12 A380s from 2013 the entrance to two hangars needed to be raised by another 3.5m to accommodate the larger tail fin.
The redevelopment has involved the introduction of 138 tonnes of additional steel and strengthening to create a new ‘eye brow’ truss to form the remodelled opening. The single largest piece of steel reinforcement – the ‘eye’ piece- weighs 24 tonnes. Over 30,000 welding rods weighing approximately 1.5 tonnes were used creating over 4km of linear welds.
Vance Williamson, British Airways’ head of property services, said: “The combined efforts and contribution from the property and engineering management teams, together with the professional construction expertise of Mace, have provided British Airways with a high quality long term aircraft maintenance facility for many years to come.”
