RAF Brize Norton

Located at the RAF (Royal Air Force) Brize Norton base in Oxfordshire, a new hanger is being built to house the new fleet of 22 Airbus A400M Atlas transport aircraft. Balfour Beatty were to design and construct the new hanger by the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO), part of the government’s Ministry of Defence.

The large three-bay steel-framed building measures 130m long, 147m wide and 28m high. Together with workshops, stores, welfare facilities and a three-storey office wing, it has a floor area of 22,000 square metres. Its curving, composite-panel-clad roof is supported over the bays by nine main steel lattice trusses, which are up to 67m long, 10m deep and 90t in weight. Overall the works included 3200t of structural steelwork, 8200m³ of rainwater attenuation tanks, six 5t overhead gantry cranes, five rail-mounted sliding doors, extensive concrete aprons and 600 m² of photovoltaic panels.

Working for Balfour Beatty, Billington Structures provided 3,000 tonnes of structural steelwork for the hanger. Billington will lift into place the 90-tonne, 10m-deep primary trusses, using a complex tandem lift which requires two lattice boom crawler cranes. Additional phases of the project involve construction of the gantry cranes, aircraft ground equipment store, forward support stores including engine and tyre bays and a three-story office block.

The RAF Brize Norton hangar is the first construction contract DIO awarded under its Next Generation Estates Contracts (NGEC) national framework, which procures building and civil engineering projects valued at up to £50m. In the final phase of the construction project, Defence Equipment and Support and Airbus will complete the internal fit-out. The three-bay hangar is designed also to accommodate C17 freight and A330 personnel aircraft.

The A400M Atlas will be the mainstay of the RAF’s air transport fleet, making this hangar at Brize Norton a vital facility which will enable the aircraft to be maintained and repaired.