History of Airplane Hangars | Why are Hangars Called Hangars?

History of REIDsteel

Founded in 1919 by Colonel John Reid, the firm is still family owned and occupies a 4 acre site at Christchurch in Dorset.

To the right is an advert for REIDsteel posted in the French Journal "La Science et La Vie" in 1935. It advertises agricultural buildings, garages, car parks, churches, hangars and houses. Is this the world's first advertisment for an aircraft hangar? Many of the structures here we still build today.

We have always exported steel buildings worldwide and continue to do so.

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The First Hangar

Loading Animation... - Louis Bleriot's Crash Landing in Northern France (may take 3 minutes on slow connections)

When Louis Bleriot Crash landed in Northern France in the early 1920's, he put his plane into a farmer's steel cattle pen made by REIDsteel. "Hangar" is Northern French dialect for cattle pen. Louis Bleriot phoned REIDsteel and ordered the first three 'Hangars', which were built at Lamotte-Beuvron. We have been making hangars and hangar doors ever since.

History of REIDsteel

Louis Blériot - French Aviation Pioneer

Cambrai, France

July 1, 1872 - August 2, 1936

Louis Bleriot - Intrepid French aviator, first man to fly across the English Channel; his first hangars at Lamotte-Beuvron were supplied by REIDsteel in the 1920's.

Louis Bleriot achieved world acclaim when he became the first person to fly across the English Channel in a powered aircraft on the 25th July 1909. The plane was a self built monoplane with a 125 horsepower engine. The flight took 40 minutes, from Les Barraques, France to Dover, England and won him the London Daily Mail prize of £1000.

Following this he built the first military aircraft for the Allied Nations during the first world war. In 1911 a Bleriot XI aircraft became the first bomber by dropping grenades on Ottoman forces in Libya. Nearly 10,000 S.P.A.D. were built between 1914-1918.