By John Switala

We had a few extra bodies around this season so we needed a place to “keep” them. Then we had a perfectly brilliant idea - under one of the hangars! No one will look there for years! Which hangar though? The single seater hangar? No, too dusty. The two seater hangar? No, too busy. The tug hangar? Perfect!

As it happens we have the perfect excuse. Around the same time as we accumulated the bodies, CASA did an inspection of the tug hangar and workshop and reckoned the floor was a bit dodgy. There was an 8 metre section at the beginning of the hangar that was all rough and had been filled/repaired with bitumen. It seems that bitumen is adversely affected by petrol (Avgas) causing it to break up. That could explain the condition of the floor!

Now we don’t want our bodies to re-appear unannounced so it would be better not to use bitumen! Instead, concrete would be best! So we laid a section of concrete 8 metres by 22 metres (don’t ask how many bodies we were hiding, we lost count when the bar opened). But let us state that we don’t have a member retention problem!

As a completely unexpected consequence, the new concrete section makes it easier for the tug pilots to pull their tugs into the hangar – no more getting stuck in the holes and the steep bits on the edge of the holes. And, because of the non slip surface, the tuggies will be able to wash their tugs daily without the fear of slipping over. It’s a win, win, win outcome!

All of this for the convenient sum of $13,000. Concrete isn’t cheap!

Many thanks to Peter Martin who made sure the quote was “up to scratch”. He is in the concrete forming business after all. And thanks to Ed Bishop for supervising the job, although he didn’t know about the supervision part until the job was finished. And hard! Rock hard! Thanks Peter and ..umm.. Ed.

See also A new floor in the tug hangar