HAMILTON — Tom Hogan hopes to take Hogan Flying Service to new heights with the completion of two new hangars at Butler County Regional Airport.
Hogan, the company’s owner, said the nearly 100,000-square-foot space at the airport allows Cessna airplanes Hogan once leased to other flight schools to be stored in one side of the area.
The hangars also house vintage aircraft in various stages of rehabilitation, as well as rental planes.
Hogan said it’s “fantastic” that the business can operate a full-fledged flight school in Hamilton, rather than just aircraft rental and training on a Piper Cub, which does not allow for full private or commercial license training.
“The building, to me, it kind of brings it together,” he said. “I get all my airplanes in ... a common location where I can have the flight training and the classroom part of it all in one place.”
The hangars, which took 15 months to construct at a cost of about $300,000, provide a more convenient option than the previous arrangement in which the business was in the airport’s administration building with its aircraft parked out on the ramp.
“The one big benefit of having
the airplanes down here is that it gets the airplanes off the tie-downs outside,” Hogan said. “When it snows or rains, it’s wear and tear on the airplane and pilots have to go out and preflight the airplane.
“With the hangars, they’ll be able to do all the preflight inside, pull it out and away they’ll go.”
Flight instructor Tim Spitzig said the new hangars help Hogan Flying Service present a more stable image to its customers than a business renting space somewhere.
“They’d rather see more of a fixed-based type operator with a fixed location,” he said.
While Hogan Flying Service set up operations at Butler County Regional Airport in 1991, Hogan’s family has a long history in local aviation. His grandparents purchased the Hamilton airport in 1932, his father and uncles were flight instructors supporting Civilian Pilot Training programs during World War II and his aunts helped run the airport.
In 1984, the family sold the airport to Butler County and the cities of Hamilton and Fairfield, but continued the flying school until 1989.
The new hangars make it possible to provide a more accessible location for aspiring pilots throughout southwest Ohio, he said.
“When we first moved down here two years ago, the only clientele we had was what Tim had established up in Middletown,” Hogan said.
Hogan expects the new Hamilton hangars to draw clients from West Chester Twp., Fairfield and northern Hamilton County.
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