Local Company Builds Bomber Hangars

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CRYSTAL RIVER -- As American B-2 stealth bombers zip over Afghanistan this week, welders at a Crystal Street factory are manufacturing new technology that could improve air strikes in future conflicts.

The employees of American Spaceframe Fabricators International (ASFI) are making portable hangars that can be erected on foreign soil and provide convenient maintenance locations for the billion-dollar stealth bombers.

A prototype was completed in Crystal River last year and tested by the Air Force this summer. Now the government has asked the company to produce four more hangars in the next year and up to a dozen over five years.

"We're very happy about it," said Curtis Tomlinson, president of ASFI, which is leasing the former Metal Industries plant.

"This couldn't have happened at a better time," Tomlinson said Monday, referring to the moribund economy. "This is a big ticket item, so it ensures that we'll be busy for the next year."

The contract has created about 10 new jobs, Tomlinson said. He would not disclose specifics but said each hangar sells for "millions."

Because of the federal holiday on Monday, military officials were unavailable.

But the Air Force Web site includes a news release touting the hangars, which include an aluminum frame covered with PVC-coated fabric, similar to the membrane over Crystal River Mall.

"The maintenance crews repeatedly commented that working in the shelter was as good or better than working in our permanent B-2 docks," Capt. Arthur Ford, who coordinated the testing at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, said in the release.

"They liked that it had better lighting, better environmental controls and more space than our existing hangars."

The shelter, which covers more than 26,000 square feet, is 55 feet tall, 125 feet long and 250 feet wide.

It is designed to protect the bombers from harsh weather, such as 110 mph winds, and provide an ideal working environment because the temperature can be controlled.

Equally important, the structure can be disassembled for shipping by boat or plane.

"The B-2 shelter system gives us the flexibility of a forward presence at a level we've never had before," Ford said. "Our turnaround time will be reduced and that will greatly increase the strength of our wing's global reach."

By ALEX LEARY

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