KC-46A Fuel Cell + General Maintenance Hangars

Pease ANG Base was assigned the KC-46A mission – an aircraft replacing the KC-135. Existing KC-135 facilities could not effectively fully enclose the new weapons system due to its larger airframe, and they also lack the required environmental controls. Benefitting from their facilitation for the development of the KC-46A Standard Prototype Facilities Guide, Blair Remy and Tetra Tech were assigned two separate task orders to perform ADAL design to construct a properly sized and configured fuel cell hangar facility (Building 253) and maintenance hangar (Building 254) to house this new airframe.

Building 253, Fuel Cell Hangar, and Building 254, Maintenance Hangar allows inspections and in-tank maintenance tasks for fuel maintenance and general maintenance, respectively, requiring the aircraft to be in a controlled environment. The existing hangars are too small to enclose the larger KC-46A airframe, so an “eyebrow” hangar expansion for each facility was programmed and planned. Although the expansions are structurally independent of their respective hangar, when combined, the KC-46A will be able to be fully enclosed. Additionally, jacking points were set in different locations so that the newly renovated and modernized hangars could still service the KC-135 airframe. Building 253 will include enclosed spaces allocated for composite shops, prep rooms, clean and dirty facilities, storage and utilities for the hangar bay will be provided within the existing hangar bay footprint. Building 254 will incorporate the renovation of the existing toilets on the first floor, the relocation of ready rooms and offices, and the addition of two tool rooms. Vertical lift fabric hangar doors, BCE preference over rolling steel, were designed into the project. This project incorporated Sustainable Design to LEED Silver, AT/FP measures, MII, Design Charrettes, D-B-B accomplished in BIM software.