How Big Should an Aircraft Hangar Be?
Tell us your aircraft and we can give you a practical starting point for the size of hangar you need.
We’ve built our own aircraft sizing database to help us do exactly that.
Instead of asking you to measure everything yourself or choose from a list of hangar sizes, we can start with your aircraft make and model. We’ve brought together the key dimensions across a wide range of aircraft, then developed a sizing method that helps us translate those dimensions into the clear width, depth, height and door opening your hangar may need.
But that’s only the starting point.
We also look at how you use the aircraft, how it moves in and out of the building, what else needs to happen inside and what you’re likely to need from the hangar in the future.
We’ve already done the groundwork behind the numbers.
You tell us what you’re flying. We’ll start from there.
We Start With Your Aircraft
Every hangar starts with an aircraft.
Once we know the make and model, we can start with three important dimensions:
- Wingspan
- Overall length
- Overall height
Together, these give us the basic aircraft envelope.
We’ve built this information into our aircraft database, so we’re not starting from scratch every time someone comes to us with a hangar project.
From there, we start working out the clear space the aircraft needs inside the hangar and through the door.
We’re not looking for the smallest shed your aircraft can technically fit inside. We want to understand how much room you need to move, store and use it comfortably.
From Aircraft Dimensions to Hangar Dimensions
Wingspan, length and height each tell us something different about the building.
| Your aircraft | What it helps us determine |
|---|---|
| Wingspan | Clear hangar width and door opening |
| Overall length | Hangar depth and usable space around the aircraft |
| Aircraft height | Clear internal height and door height |
| Aircraft type | How it may be moved and positioned |
| Number of aircraft | Layout and access requirements |
| Future aircraft | Whether we should allow additional capacity now or later |
We then consider the space needed around the aircraft, including room at the wingtips, nose and tail, and the clear opening required to move it comfortably through the door.
There isn’t one clearance that works for every aircraft or every operation.
A hangar used mainly for private aircraft storage can have very different requirements from one used for regular maintenance, commercial operations or multiple aircraft.
How Wide Does Your Aircraft Hangar Need to Be?
Wingspan is the starting point for hangar width.
If your aircraft has a 14 m wingspan, we wouldn’t recommend a 14 m wide hangar. The aircraft might technically fit, but you would have almost no usable space beside it.
We look at how much room you need around the wingtips, whether people or equipment need to move alongside the aircraft and whether anything else will be stored along the sides of the building.
For multiple aircraft, layout becomes even more important. The way wings interact, how aircraft are positioned and whether each aircraft needs independent access can all affect the width required.
So the right hangar width isn’t simply the wingspan plus a standard allowance. It depends on the aircraft and how you intend to use the space.
How Deep Does Your Aircraft Hangar Need to Be?
Aircraft length gives us the starting point for hangar depth.
From there, we look at what needs to happen around the nose and tail.
For straightforward aircraft storage, that may simply mean enough room to position and access the aircraft comfortably. If you’re planning maintenance, equipment storage, workbenches, parts storage or vehicle access, you may need considerably more space.
Sometimes additional depth can provide that flexibility without increasing the clear span of the entire building.
When we’re developing the concept, we want to know what you need to do once the aircraft is inside, not simply whether it fits.
How High Does Your Aircraft Hangar Need to Be?
Aircraft height, particularly the tail, gives us the starting point.
We then consider the clear height through the door and the usable internal height of the building.
Those dimensions aren’t necessarily the same as the overall external building height. The building structure, door system and services can all affect the available clear space, so they need to be considered together.
This is also worth thinking about if you’re considering a taller aircraft in the future. You can have enough floor area for another aircraft and still find that the door opening becomes the limiting factor.
The Door Is Part of the Hangar, Not an Afterthought
We work through the hangar opening at the same time as the building.
Wingspan and tail height give us the starting dimensions, but we also consider how the aircraft approaches the opening, how frequently it moves through it and how the door system works with the building structure.
CASA’s apron safety guidance highlights the importance of managing collision risks between aircraft, vehicles, equipment and obstacles, as well as safe aircraft entry and egress in apron environments.
That movement path matters when we’re developing the hangar concept.
A wider building also doesn’t automatically mean you need a door across its full width. What matters is providing the clear opening your aircraft and operation require.
For projects requiring large engineered aviation doors, we can coordinate with our sister company OpenX Doors as the building and door requirements develop.
What Changes the Hangar Size?
Two people can own the same aircraft and need very different hangars.
That’s because we’re designing around more than the aircraft.
| How you’ll use the hangar | What we’ll consider |
|---|---|
| Aircraft storage | Practical access and efficient use of space |
| Storage + equipment | Additional room around or behind the aircraft |
| Regular maintenance | Working space around the aircraft and wings |
| Workshop + aircraft | Dedicated workshop, equipment or storage areas |
| Multiple aircraft | Aircraft arrangement and access |
| Commercial operation | People, equipment, amenities and operational requirements |
| Future aircraft | Additional width, height, depth or expansion options |
This is where a generic online hangar size chart starts to lose its usefulness.
Planning a Hangar for Multiple Aircraft
Once you’re housing several aircraft, we don’t simply multiply the floor area. We start looking at how the aircraft need to sit and move within the building.
Can they sit side-by-side? Can their wings overlap? Are you comfortable moving one aircraft to reach another, or do you need independent access to each one?
Our Hunter Valley Gliding Club aircraft hangar in Singleton is a good example. The club needed to house gliders and tow aircraft while maintaining access to individual aircraft.
Rather than simply making the building wider, we developed a 15 m wide by 60 m long hangar with large openings along both long sides. This allowed aircraft to be accessed without having to move everything else first. Pasted text
Clear Space Matters More Than Floor Area
A square-metre figure doesn’t tell us whether an aircraft will work comfortably inside a building.
For hangar sizing, the clear dimensions are more useful.
| Dimension | What we’re looking at |
|---|---|
| Clear width | Aircraft wingspan, side clearance and internal layout |
| Clear depth | Aircraft length and space in front of and behind it |
| Clear height | Aircraft height and usable internal space |
| Door clear width | The opening available as the aircraft moves through |
| Door clear height | Tail clearance through the opening |
This is one reason clear-span steel buildings are well suited to aircraft hangars. Removing internal columns from the main aircraft area gives you greater freedom to position and move aircraft.
Our commercial aircraft hangar at Cessnock Airport, for example, uses a 27 m clear span to create an open aircraft area alongside office and amenities space.
What Else Needs to Fit Inside?
Your aircraft may drive the main dimensions, but it’s rarely the only thing we need to consider.
You may also want space for maintenance, equipment, parts, vehicles, offices, bathrooms or staff facilities.
Tell us about those requirements early. We can then look at where they need to sit and whether they need to occupy the main clear-span aircraft area.
Different uses can also affect how parts of a building are classified under the National Construction Code. You don’t need to determine that before you talk to us. We need to understand what you’re planning to do in the building so the right requirements can be addressed as the design develops.
We Don’t Just Size Your Hangar for Today
What are you flying now, and is that likely to change?
You might already know you want to move into a larger aircraft. You may add another aircraft, expand your operation or need more workshop and equipment space later.
That doesn’t mean we’ll automatically recommend building a bigger hangar now.
The useful conversation is whether decisions made today could unnecessarily limit your options later.
| Approach | When it might make sense | What we’ll consider |
|---|---|---|
| Size for your current aircraft | Your aircraft and operation are unlikely to change | Efficient use of space and budget |
| Allow for a larger aircraft | You’re considering an upgrade | Future wingspan, height and door opening |
| Allow for another aircraft | Fleet growth is likely | Layout, access and additional floor area |
| Allow for more operations | Maintenance or business use may grow | Workshop, storage, amenities and services |
| Design for expansion | You don’t need the extra building now | Building position, structure, apron and available land |
Future planning doesn’t always mean building more today.
It might mean positioning the hangar differently on the site, preserving space at one end for an extension, considering how the apron could develop or avoiding placing services where they could become an obstacle later.
These are much easier conversations to have while the hangar is still being planned
Your Site Can Change the Answer
Once we understand what your aircraft needs, we need to make sure the building works on your site.
Lease boundaries, setbacks, neighbouring buildings, apron space, taxiway or taxilane access, drainage, vehicle access and airport requirements can all influence where the hangar sits and how large it can be.
Height may also be restricted around airports.
The Australian Government’s National Airports Safeguarding Framework includes guidance for development around airports, including protected airspace and building-generated windshear and turbulence.
Your aircraft gives us a starting point for the hangar. The site tells us what we have to work with.
Our Where Should You Build an Aircraft Hangar? Site Planning and Airport Considerations article looks at this part of the process in more detail.
Start With the Aircraft. We’ll Help Determine the Building.
You don’t need to come to us knowing whether you need an 18 m, 24 m or 30 m hangar.
We’ve developed our own aircraft sizing database covering a wide range of aircraft models, along with the key dimensions we need to start planning a hangar around them.
Tell us what you’re flying and we can use that information to establish the aircraft envelope and start working through the clear width, depth, height and door opening your hangar may need.
From there, we look at what the numbers alone can’t tell us: how you use the aircraft, how it moves in and out of the building, what else needs to fit inside, what your site allows and what you might need from the hangar in the future.
Our sizing tools give us a strong starting point quickly. Our job is to make sure that starting point makes sense for you.
That’s where the Concept stage of our 3C Advantage starts.
Once those requirements are clear, we can Configure the building around them before moving through to Construct.
Start with the aircraft. We’ll help determine the building.
Explore our aircraft hangar solutions, see our broader aviation building experience or talk to the TechSpan team about your aircraft hangar.