Navy to build new hangar Published Jan. 10, 2014 By Mike W. Ray Tinker Public Affairs TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. -- Construction is expected to start this spring on a new maintenance hangar for naval aircraft stationed at Tinker AFB. The 2014 National Defense Authorization Bill approved by Congress and signed in late December by the president included $14 million for construction of a new hangar at TACAMO for the Navy's E-6B, a command and communication plane, officials confirmed recently. The new structure will be the third hangar, and the fifth bay, for Strategic Communications Wing 1 on the south side of Tinker AFB. Commander Ed McCabe, Operations Officer for SCW-1, said the structure will be erected between Bldg. 820 (SCW-1's pair of two-bay hangars) and Bldg. 830 (SCW-1's headquarters). The "overall aesthetic" of the new hangar will match that of the existing hangars, according to Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Midwest. The new high-bay hangar will have 36,000 square feet of enclosed space and will be equipped with a nine-ton overhead bridge crane and a fold-up aircraft hangar door, SCW-1 Maintenance Officer Chris Chandler said. The E-6B is 150 feet long, 42½ feet high, and has a 150-foot wingspan. The new hangar will have three principal functions, Mr. Chandler said: "high-bay maintenance work area configured for fuel cell maintenance, crew and equipment shop-related space, and administrative office-related space." Competitive bids have been received and construction is tentatively slated to start in May, he said. The E-6B's "aggressive depot inspection and modification schedule, coupled with the Service Life Extension Program," are the reasons why a new hangar is required, Mr. Chandler said. SLEP is an inspection that focuses on "certain points of the airframe that have been identified as fatigue 'hot spots'," he explained. "Once those are inspected and fixed, if required, it extends the service life of the aircraft." The E-6A was delivered to the Navy between 1989 and 1992, and E-6B modifications to the fleet were made between 1997 and 2006, records reflect. The new hangar will "allow organizational-level scheduled and unscheduled maintenance to be performed in the existing hangars and provide a designated depot maintenance hangar within the Navy complex" to support StratComm-1's aging fleet of E-6B Mercurys at Tinker, Mr. Chandler said. "Up to now, the Navy has been able to use an Air Force/Boeing-owned hangar for some of that more in-depth maintenance," Bill Couch, public affairs officer for Naval Facilities Engineering Command Midwest, Great Lakes, Ill., said last June. "However, I understand the Air Force now needs to use that capacity because of an increase in demand for that level of maintenance on its own aircraft at Tinker." TACAMO has 16 E-6B Mercury aircraft that enable the president of the United States and the Secretary of Defense to directly contact submarines, bombers and missile silos protecting U.S. national security through nuclear deterrence. The Navy's fleet of Mercurys provides command and control for all U.S. nuclear forces in the event that ground-based command centers are destroyed or otherwise rendered inoperable.