New hangars on tap for El Centro

[unhappycamper]

New hangars on tap for El Centro
Staff report
Posted : Thursday Oct 23, 2008 6:33:24 EDT

SAN DIEGO — The Navy’s desert air base in Southern California — winter training home to the Navy’s famed “Blue Angels” flight demonstration team — is getting an $18 million facelift.

Construction crews started work Oct. 17 to replace three smaller existing hangars at El Centro, a naval air facility 110 miles east of San Diego, with a pair of larger hangers designed to accommodate the Joint Strike Fighter and other aircraft, Navy officials said in a release.

El Centro’s location allows squadrons quick access to large aerial flight and gunnery ranges in the Southwest, including the Chocolate Mountains in California and the Barry M. Goldwater range in Arizona. The project will mean one more hangar at El Centro and a little extra room to house an additional squadron detachment.

Two detachments will be housed in each hangar, which are pre-engineered modular buildings. The hangars will feature roll-up hangar doors, walls that allow filtered light in and reflective roofs to lessen solar heat inside the building.

“This facility is one of the first on the West Coast to use the translucent roll up doors,” project manager Howard Sweatte, who works for Naval Facilities Engineering Command-Southwest, said in the release. “The doors are light weight and cut down on maintenance from the sliding type that are difficult to open with dirt that gets in the tracks. The roll up doors provides day lighting without the harsh direct sun. They are designed to withstand 160 mph winds.”


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/10/navy_el_centro_102208/%2e