Elevated Parking

You think you have trouble fitting everything in the garage so your car doesn't have to sit out in the snow? Imagine if you had a score or more of airplanes in your driveway.

Daniel Webster College, which has about 300 aviation majors among its students, has lots of single-engine planes in its driveway — the tarmac at Boire Field in Nashua. This winter, fewer will have to suffer in the snow.

The school says it will buy four Aero-Lifts from Arm Aerospace of Tucson, Ariz., for delivery in October so it can fit several more Cessna 172s — the single-engine workhorse of learning-to-fly fleet — in its hangar. The lifts, each of which weighs 2,700 pounds, can take a plane weighing up to 2,500 pounds and raise it as much as 10 feet, allowing other airplanes to be tucked nearby on the ground.

"Daniel Webster requires many airplanes to be at the read for students each morning," Phil Hengsteler of Arm Aerospace said. "The college owns a hangar that fits about 15 Cessna 172s; however, the space, with a ceiling height of over 40 feet, was being underutilized. With the Aero-Lifts, they now can fit 18-19 Cessna 172s in the same space, saving substantial money on an annual lease for a hangar they really only use about six months of the year."

Two other Aero-Lifts are already used by flight-training organizations at the Nashua airport.