ANN's good friends Rich and Ginger Davidson (who are running that cool "Time Pieces" J-3 fractional program) have been dealing with record snows lately in Hanover, IN. While all that snow would seem to create a flight or take-off/landing hazard, it was hard to imagine that the immense snows had yet another hazard in store... collapsing heavily snowed-upon hangars under the weight of all that heavy white stuff.

Rich tells us that, "We've had a rough time here in our area. The all time record snows have hit several people hard. For Ginger and myself it was devastating. The aircraft that my father, brother, and myself learned to fly in (owned for almost 30 years) was flattened by a collapsed hangar. Along side it was  one of Ginger's Time Pieces machines... a Clipped Wing Cub that was our favorite and originally converted for Duane Cole. Yet we are not the only ones. Our insurance agent told us many hangars had collapsed in the area. We are told that one of the other losses was a frequent visitor to Lee Bottom, a rare Meyers OTW (not confirmed).

What I want to stress is that everyone in our area should make sure their hangars are OK if they haven't and everyone should get professional advice to see if their hangars are actually able to handle the loads claimed by the manufacturer... ours wasn't."

Word to the wise... if your hangar is carrying a load of snow, get it cleared quickly and make sure that it can handle anticipated loads. Failure to do so can be heart-braking and expensive.

FMI: www.leebottom.com