Dover Air Force Base -- The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Philadelphia District joined elected officials and Dover Air Force Base officials on April 15 for a ribbon cutting ceremony to commemorate the completion of an aircraft maintenance hangar.
The $44.8 million hangar will provide a new home to the C5-M Super Galaxy, the largest aircraft in the Air Force fleet.
“The completion of this hangar gets after two of our priorities: readiness and quality of life for our airmen,” said Colonel William McDonald. This would not have been possible without the tremendous effort and teamwork of everyone involved on the project.”
Archer Western Federal Joint Venture served as contractor for the 84,000 square foot facility, which is a ‘fuel cell hangar’ designed with special ventilation, fire, mechanical and electrical safety measures. The hangar can maintain both C-5 Super Galaxy and C-17 Globemaster, two of the largest cargo planes for Air Force, one at a time.
Christian Bickings, a USACE area engineer, has been working as an Administrative Contracting Officer on the hangar for the past four years.
“There’s been a whole bunch of people pushing in the right direction to move this project along - it takes a team,” said Bickings.
One member of that team is Rohan Patel, a USACE project engineer, who has been involved in the hangar project since the design process began.
Patel said, “This has been a great learning experience and it has been an honor to be involved with this project. There has been a tremendous effort from the team and people are very proud of this new construction project.”
Project manager, Bob Ward, noted the USACE team’s persistence and collaboration on the project, stating, “There’s nothing easy about military construction, but they made it happen.”
U.S. Senator Thomas Carper and U.S. Senator Christopher Coons attended the ceremony and offered remarks on the new hangar and thanked everyone involved in the construction process.
“For everyone who worked hard to build this hangar, you are heroes too. Colleagues from everywhere talk about Dover Air Force Base and its great reputation,” said Senator Carper.
The new hangar is the first built on Dover AFB since 1983 and is the only hangar on the installation that will serve both the C-17 and C-5.