…Your
vision is not limited by what your eye can see, but by what your mind can
imagine" Spaces of Air
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| "Spaces of Air" is about 1.5 million square feet of hangar space in Birmingham Alabama; once known as Hayes Aircraft, this heritage of hangars from the WWII are indicative of the capacity needed at the time. | |
"…Your
vision is not limited by what your eye can see, but by what your mind can
imagine"
- Astronaut Ellison Onizuka, Konawaena High School, Hawaii, 1980
"Spaces of Air" is another in the family of Stories of my Soul; and is more about an old, massive hangar (or set of hangars) than other aspects of aircraft and aerospace.
The time was 2005, the place was Birmingham, and the event was a job; it was these circumstances that offered the inspiration for this story. Beneath the aging structure of a million and a half of square feet was the collection of aviation history dating back to WWII. What began as merely swamp land was converted to war production of at sonic speed and with a mass of construction...followed by assembly...followed by repair and overhaul.
By 2005 - or approximately 50 years after construction - the structure was mostly "spaces of air" - with operations reserved to two or three of the hangar spaces; and for the balance of unused space was the obvious degradation that time and neglect can cause. Even with the grime and the grim of an aging operation, the structure seemed to speak - as though to recollect the golden age - of a company whose business stretched from one coast to the next...and from the mammoth space of the hangar to Mercury space program.
With only a few references at hand, to include brief accounts of senior employees, I went about the story as I went about the structure: marveling at what evidently was once a thriving enterprise...though now so much less...
For
more information, e-mail: hey@hkirkrainer.org 
Last Edited: 07/08/2009