John Sisk & Son has delivered a super hangar for aircraft manufacturer Boeing at Gatwick Airport, using more than 3,000t of structural steel during the construction.
Sisk won the £88m deal for the GoldCare hangar in 2018. The maintenance facility in the airport’s north west development zone is designed to house some of Boeing’s largest aircraft, including the 777X, due to enter service soon, and some 737 models.
Sisk’s UK south and UK civils arms undertook the project, with the civils division taking on groundworks, hangar slab, pavement-quality apron slab, foam suppression tanks, and hard and soft landscaping. The contractor laid more than 16,000m3 of concrete in the hangar slab and apron slab.
The structural steel frame contains 75m-long trusses which were erected as a tandem lift using crawler cranes and the building has two levels, with a 32m-high roof at the higher level to accommodate the tail of the aircraft.
The building’s comprehensive fire suppression system, which incorporates both sprinklers and a foam suppression system, is fed by two 1.5m litre water tanks with pumps powered by four 542BHP diesel engines, each powering a pump.
