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Personal experience: Please don't move your RV project to airport hangar too quickly

MartinACFactory

Well Known Member
Hello all !

With this post, I'd like to share my personal experience of moving my RV-8 project to the airport hangar, and wonder if other builders have had similar experiences.

I do not have a garage at home. Therefore, back in summer of 2015, I started my project in the garden shed behind my house. Quickly space became limited, and Quebec winter made it impractical to build there. I was lucky to find very affordable rental workspace in a closed Ford dealership garage 5 minutes from home. This is where I built most of my RV in between 2015 and 2021. Early 2021, the building landlord announced his intentions to tear down the former car dealership to replace it with a housing project. In panic mode, I started looking for another nearby affordable location to continue my project.

Back in November 2016, my local GA airport, Mascouche (CSK3) closed (It has become an industrial park since then :mad:). I live 3 km from this former airport. Because of Mascouche closure, I moved all my aviation activities to the next closest GA airport from my home, Joliette (CSG3). Joliette Airport is a 45 minutes drive from my home.

Anyhow, in Fall of 2021 still looking for a location to move my project to, a hangar became available for sale at Joliette Airport. I made a deal with the Seller, and to my great surprise, I became owner of a 2,000 sqft hangar (50 ft wide X 40 ft deep). I was super happy about this acquisition, a dream come true. I moved my RV-8 project just before X-mas 2021. In order to finance the acquisition, I also rented space for two aircraft.

In 2022, I spent numerous hours to improve the hangar and start making in enjoyable. This became a on-going project of its own, competing with the RV-8 project for my time and funds !

Now, after one year+ of hangar ownership, I can confirm that everything you hear about taking your RV project to the hangar is true !

First of all, for me the distance from home is almost a "project demotivator". I realized recently looking back at my project log that the biggest contributor to project were those regular 1-2 hours of work session just showing up at the shop near home. Now, I have to plan my work session to ensure my presence at the hangar is maximized considering the drive to and back from hangar. Currently it is winter, and often the drive to the airport is risky on snowy and icy country roads, therefore I stay home and cancel the RV work session.

Second is the hangar space....By choice and financial "necessity", I decided to share my hangar with other airplanes. Basically, my hangar is larger than my former shop space, but I have less useful and efficient room to work on my project. I work on my RV-8 fuselage electrical system under the shadow of a Cessna 172 wing.

Third is the visitors...Don't get me wrong that the fun part of being on the airport. But occasionally, I politely kick-out visitors to ensure that I work on the RV ! My time at the hangar is premium.

My RV project has been on the backburner for the last two years, mainly because of my involvement in Flight Instructing and the move to the hangar. I still have a long way to go before RV-8 s/n 80414 first flight at CSG3. Meaning a lot of drive or camping nights in the hangar. I am super pumped about owning my hangar, but at same time trying to find motivation to push RV-8 project to first flight. Getting back into the build is proving to be challenging.

I am wondering: Do you have similar experience to share about moving your RV project to the hangar airport ?


Here below is an outside picture of my hangar
52676267224_515f93fca4_c.jpg
[/url]Hangar 1018 Photo by Martin Leroux, on Flickr[/IMG]

Moving the RV-8 fuselage to the hangar, early Dec 2021, and before repainting the hangar walls and floor.

52676409725_6be9793a27_c.jpg
[/url]IMG_0226 by Martin Leroux, on Flickr[/IMG]

Space I have to work on my RV-8, with the fuselage at the back of the hangar and my work table constantly moving around...

52676426340_a876f33237_z.jpg
[/url]IMG_0762 by Martin Leroux, on Flickr[/IMG]
 
One benefit of being at the airport

Hello again,

I forgot the mention that one benefit of being at the airport is that it is easier to get some assistance for your project and tools other main own. We have a few builder / restorers and mechanics at Joliette CSG3 always willing to give an hand.
 
Beautiful hangar, just maybe a little cozy right now. Stay the course! Once you get your beaut flying you’ll have to kick those guys out for room and you will have an outstanding setup!!
 
All valid points and similar to my experience and probably most others. Lots of advantages to moving to the airport but, like most things, comes with down sides. Luckily when I first moved to the airport and, while still building, I was only about 20-30 (depending on traffic) minutes away from hangar for about a year. I created a routine of going on the same days of the week and at the same time to keep from the thought of not going due to drive time. After a year a new freeway and bridge across the Missouri river opened and shortened my drive to 15 minutes. That really helped during end game of the build with all the 1000s of little things.

Now I moved to a new house that is 40 minute drive away from airport and don’t go out nearly as often and a feeling like I am slipping from being part of the airport community. I Need to get back to a routine of going.

I think you need to weigh the several life aspects of your aviation hobby to help you through. You now have hangar ownership with the immersion in an airport community, the joy of building, and the desire to be flying. Any one of them can be enough motivation to continue pushing forward.
Good luck.
 
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As far as the visitors go… I was working on the fuselage at my home near the entrance to my subdivision. It was pretty busy with people going on their morning and evening walks. Everyone was curious about the brightly lit garage and all the accompanying noise from the compressor, drilling, and riveting.

One way to deter visitors was to leave my garage door about halfway open instead of fully open. It seemed to cut down some of the traffic. When I did have visitors, I would give them 5 minutes of my undivided attention. After that, they got some sandpaper and a sanding block and pointed to the neared fiberglass part I could find. The didn’t stick around long after that!

Don't get me wrong; I enjoy having visitors. But as you know, hope time is valuable!
 
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Martin, I can understand the mixed feelings you have.
Having your own hangar at the airport is a definitive plus. Congratulations on finding/buying one !!

It being far away and with a limited amount of space can be an irritant. But as most will attest, keep on building, it's very worth it !!!

CSG3 is a nice airport with lots of activity, that's a good thing.
Winter does have it's challenges, snow, cold and darkness... Tell yourself that spring is only a couple of months away!!

I used to work at CSK3 late 80's, early 90's and it was a busy airport with lots of airplanes there and lots of training. It's a shame that it's gone and that there's no close alternative in the near future. A definitive loss for GA.

I installed shop in a rented hangar space when the project was more/less at the quickbuilt stage. I had 1/3 of a roomy 60 feet wide hangar, shared with a low wing and a high wing airplane. It was heated and well lighted, a significant improvement from the basement 1 car garage I used to occupy.
Between the garage and the airport, one year went by without work on the airplane. Disassembling the shop, crating everything up, and moving all items across the Atlantic, then re-organizing the whole kept me busy for sure.

About a year later, I moved from the rented space to my own hangar on the same airport. So another few months of work on hold due to the move... But that was another improvement being in my own hangar from then even if it's shared with the Cessna.
Then, "life" came around and seriously slowed progress for another 15 months.

In my case, I estimate that I reached the flying stage in about 2 1/2 years more than if I didn't have these interruptions.
All I'm saying is that despite hardships, delays and frustrations at times, look at what you have: your own hangar and a +/- half done project.
Yes, you will "lose" 90 minutes of work time every day you go to the airport.
I'm 25 minutes away so it's an hour lost each time I go there.

I planed on being there for a least 4 hours. If not possible, I'd go anyway and progress was still made.
And you will progress also.
Don't forget that you normally don't have a deadline/timeline. Of course you want to have it flying yesterday. Be patient, it's well worth it.

In warmer days, maybe you could move the tenants outside while you work?
And visitors can be fun but also disturbing. Tact is needed at times to send them on their way. However, a helping hand that you can trust is a plus. Remember that work often progresses 3 times faster with a helper...

I'm only 40 minutes away at RV speed, if you want, I'll drop by one of these days for a motivation booster.
 
I suppose I had the worst of all worlds while building our aircraft. I built it at the airport in a hangar immediately adjacent to our EAA chapter hangar. Not only that, my hangar was more like a farm equipment shed - it kept the rain off and blocked some of the wind, but that was about it.

One year I noted in my build log that on October 19th snow was blowing horizontally past my hangar and in under the door. That was the last entry in my build log until late the following March. It was a hard winter.

At a point two years into the build, the point when the "rational me" felt the aircraft should have been ready for an engine run, I had an epiphany. I realized that I had been pushing and pushing, building with speed of completion in mind. I reviewed my feelings and realized that every visitor who came to my hangar was viewed as an interruption, something slowing me down. Feelings of anger and frustration at not having met my expectations for progress were becoming more common. In short, my focus on making progress had caused me to stop enjoying the process of building.

It took a lot of discipline for me to effect a reversal of course in my thinking. Since I had already blown my build timeline I gave myself permission to no longer focus on progress so much as on process, and, importantly, on enjoying the process.

The results of this change of thinking were extremely positive. Firstly, I started seeing my trips to the hangar as mini-vacations, escapes to my pleasure place. My quality of build went up as I gave myself permission to spend more time contemplating how to do things better, and I gave myself more time to re-do things I wasn't happy with. I also gave myself more time to interact with the frequent visitors to my hangar. In doing so I gained a huge benefit in being able to draw on the knowledge and experience of those visitors.

Ultimately it didn't take the two years I had planned on to build our airplane but rather it took six years. The end product is better for the extra time invested. I'd like to think I'm a better person for having taken more time to interact with my many hangar visitors. When the time came for the first flight I benefitted from having an enthusiastic and supportive volunteer "pit crew" who just happened to show up to help when I needed them most.

Just as in any form of travelling, enjoying the trip is often as important as the final destination. I'm often reminded of the wise words of a good race driving coach. "Slow hands - fast car..." and "smooth equals fast". Perhaps we should be more focused on being smooth rather than fast. At the end of the day, if one doesn't enjoy the build, why bother building?
 
We have a rule about drop-in visitors to the hangar during any work session (be it fabrication of a part, installation of something, routine maintenance, annual CI, whatever)...

Never stop working. You may have to tell them you're in the middle of something, can't talk right now, or if you might be able to carry on a conversation while, say, sanding a part or something like that, but once you stop work and start conversing, you're DOOMED. I guesstimated that any conversation that comes up like that where I stop work results in at least a half hour of lost time, oftentimes more.

I'm not rude, or mean, or anything, but there are times when I just need to proceed with a task and stopping to engage in conversation costs time and increases the risks of an error.

And don't get me started on drop-in visitors who *just can't keep their hands to themselves* and feel a compulsion to start messing with control surfaces, etc. Grrrrrrr....I always want to ask them if it'd be okay if I played with their wife's/girlfriend's nipples, but I never have. :)
 
Contrasting point of view:

I'm retired. I get up in the morning, maybe make breakfast for what ever family is around to eat it, walk the dog. And, then I take off for the sanctity of my nice clean brightly lit and heated hangar, where all my tools are, and everything is right where I left it.

I can listen to music, have a cup of coffee while I work. And, maybe a friend or 2 will drop by to hold a bucking bar, or just shoot the breeze.

I like having my project at the airport. Beats the **** out of guilting myself out of the easy chair to go to the garage and reorganize a home-space into a shop space only to have to take out the trash, carry in groceries, or empty the dishwasher at a moment's notice.

52626267545_03cb82d062_z.jpg
 
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I started mine in December 2019 in the garage. By February, my wife wanted to kill me from all the compressor and riveting noise. I moved to a shared industrial size hangar with heat, light, bathroom, etc in March 2020.

Yeah, it was a pain some days motivating to drive 15 minutes to get work done. I sometimes brought small parts (things to drill, debur, paint, or electrical stuff to work on a bench) home but most things I keep there. The hangar does have great power and wifi, so I also brought my work laptop and some days would just work from 8-5 at the hangar during the lockdowns on zoom, taking breaks from work to get plane stuff done when I had time.

The upside is all the help I get. My EAA TC is in the next hangar over. He has built 6 planes. The CFI I will do my first flights with is on his second build and is two rows away. I currently share the hangar with a Frontier captain, a Southwest captain, a couple of other guys, and an airport rat with his A&P and four planes. There are at least three other A&Ps I know nearby, plus a retired guy who rebuilds planes from WWII and has tens of thousands of hours of experience.

As a first time builder, having this amazing community of helpful people who are always available to lend a hand or give me an opinion on something has been invaluable.
 
While I completely agree with the OP - building at home will get you more building time, more often, than if you move it to the airport - there is an exception to the “don’t move it to the airport until the last possible moment” rule…. This of us that live at an airpark know the secret! ;)

My “commute” to the hangar is about ten seconds long……. :)

Paul
 
My half hour one-way commute definitely inhibits me from taking the project to the hangar, as well as going flying (I have a flying non-RV there).

Dave
 
30 minutes? Drive faster! We now live a short distance from you and I can get to KBDU in 15-20 minutes if I avoid rush hours
 
Welcome to drop by at CSG3

I'm only 40 minutes away at RV speed, if you want, I'll drop by one of these days for a motivation booster.
.

Eric, you are welcome to drop by CSG3 for a visit to my hangar. I am trying to discipline myself to be at the hangar most Saturday for a full day. Just get in touch with me first.
 
Well that makes a lot more sense. I've run home from KBDU, usually when my wife drops me off and the dog needs some exercise.
 
Interesting to hear the different situations folks are in.
We moved not quite a year ago. Our old house simply didn’t have the room to build. The new one has a 3 car garage sized shop under the garage, including radiant heat in the floor.
My wife is a nurse manager for the local hospital and is out of the house about 5:00 in the morning. One night last week I was headed to the shop and gave her a kiss on my way past, she said “See you tomorrow night” because she knew she would be asleep before I came to bed. I do stop with the C-Arm at 9:30 out of courtesy to her, and because I want to stay married.
I will have to move to the garage in order to mate the tail cone and empennage, and plan on doing as much as I can in the heated garage before I move to the unheated (MN) hangar.
 
Interesting to hear the different situations folks are in.
We moved not quite a year ago. Our old house simply didn’t have the room to build. The new one has a 3 car garage sized shop under the garage, including radiant heat in the floor.
My wife is a nurse manager for the local hospital and is out of the house about 5:00 in the morning. One night last week I was headed to the shop and gave her a kiss on my way past, she said “See you tomorrow night” because she knew she would be asleep before I came to bed. I do stop with the C-Arm at 9:30 out of courtesy to her, and because I want to stay married.
I will have to move to the garage in order to mate the tail cone and empennage, and plan on doing as much as I can in the heated garage before I move to the unheated (MN) hangar.

Heat and light make all the difference. No way I'd want to spend hour on hour working in a damp unheated an poorly lit hangar!
 
Just me

I moved to the airport and am glad I did. It got too big for the garage once the all the kits arrived. I usually went to the airport when the kids were occupied. The extra space made up for the nickel and diming on the little jobs, but my kids were older.
 
While I don’t disagree with the OP, if you’re in a position in life where you can work your project like a job, a 45 minute commute isn’t a big deal. You’re most productive when you can get in a groove and work a full day. Piddling away an hour here, two there, makes it tough to gain momentum.
Now, if that commute is stressful, all together another thing…..
 
Next best thing to being there......

Hello again,

I forgot the mention that one benefit of being at the airport is that it is easier to get some assistance for your project and tools other main own. We have a few builder / restorers and mechanics at Joliette CSG3 always willing to give an hand.

Martin.....great points for positive and negatives! Joy and agony seem to be the crux of the E/AB world. After 10 years of building and job and every other thing in life I am finally coming close on my "not-so-quick" build kit.

Since an airpark community wasn't going to work for us....I decided that I needed to get the infrastructure for the course of the build. We have a small home but it has a full size walk out basement. That's where the project began its life 10 years ago.
CIMG0174.jpg

About a year or so after getting the project started I purchased a hangar for sale at my local airport. I knew that working from home was far more productive so I rented out the hangar....over the process of 10 years it is paid for and producing income while my tortoise build pace has continued.
CIMG2212.jpg

I ended up building a 22X30 shop on my property for my small machine shop that I have(mostly for personal projects and helping out other E/AB folks) which I built myself (other than concrete work) for about $15K completely wired and heated and cooled with a mini-split unit. It also added about $40K to my house value!
IMG_1689.jpg

I moved the fuselage out there a year or so ago where the engine was mounted and other work done. I will keep the airplane in there as long as I can prior to moving it to the hangar.
CIMG0607.jpg

Like Paul Dye said....it is a 15 second walk to go out to the shop or basement in the wee hours of the morning or the late hours of the evening. I have a paid off hangar and a house with value added......so far the strategy has proved golden....now to get the plane in the air!

Martin.....I hope you can find a way to even move the airplane closer to you...I know that my project would suffer even if I had to drive the 20 minutes to my hangar.....

YOL BOLSON Mon amie!
 
it's worth it

Hi Martin

Like yourself, moving to a hangar from my garage just a few seconds away was one of the most difficult things to do during the project.
I moved to CYOO December of 2020. The whole kit, all my tools, benches ….
And for me, like you, 45 minutes drive. Every weekend, Saturday and Sunday, to the hangar, loosing about 1-2 hours each day.

None of this is for the faint of heart. If you enjoy the build process you have 2 things on your side. For me it was knowing every rivet was flush to mil-spec. Every detail was important because the end result was in my hands. I did things no one should do, like aluminum windscreen fairings, a centre console; all things that added many months. ( I did it … my way).
Enjoy the build process.
And here’s why. Thing number 2, the results.

I completed C-FWMB, my RV-9A, last summer. Signed off by MDRA July of 2022. After 25 hours the restrictions were lifted by TC, and 2 weeks later in December I have an IFR certified platform. About 7+ years total.
But the most important part was how well it flies. Straight and level, hands off flying. Leaps off the runway. Amazingly easy to fly and land.
All that will be your doing when you get there. So enjoy the build and get there. It’s worth it.
 
I feel your pain on the weather. I built my 9A in my un heated garage in Western NY. I feel like it took at least 2 years longer to build because most days I couldn't drag myself out into the cold to build. Took me about 6 months from moving to the hangar until first flight. Hangar is 30 minutes away and there were a LOT of trips. I had my share of interruptions too. I welcomed them all though. Many had some pretty cool aviation stories to tell me and I love showing off my build. One day the interruptions were well worth it. I got a ride in a 1941 PT22 and then my first glider ride.
 
growing pains

I’m on the side where I enjoyed the move to the airport. Opening the hangar door to Rwy 17 / 35 and being around like-minded individuals served as a great motivator.
Yes, I would be giving up the 1 – 2 hour work sessions. But I disciplined myself to put in bigger chunks on Sat / Sun.
My commute wasn’t bad, 20 – 25 minutes. It got to the point where during the commute to the airport, I would set goals on what I wanted to accomplish that day. On the drive home, I would then grade my work. I figured if I garnered a lot of As and Bs I would have a pretty good airplane in the end.
My hangar is unheated. But that 1000w shop light I have not only kicks out great light, it kicks out some warmth too. And working in the cockpit can be warm and cozy.
You’ll have visitors. Most of mine just wanted an update and moved on. Heck, I had a visitor stop by that built an Oshkosh award winning RV-4. He gave me his business card and offered his services if needed. He’s been a great resource.
When I’m not flying, I still like going out there to tinker around. It’s a nice escape, kind of like your own fishing hole.

Doug
RV-7 Flying!!!
 
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