Cowra Mayor, Councillor Bill West will be on hand to officially open the hangar and the day will also feature a barbecue and an opportunity to check out the brand new building. 

Mark Dixon and Lyn Gray from Fly Oz said the new hangar has been 18 months in the making. 

“The purpose of the hanger was basically just for the business expansion,” Mark said. 

“​We’ve been confined to this terminal building for quite a while and now that we’ve got international students… and for future developments, we just needed more space.”

The hangar will play host to classrooms and offices and can also hold around 10 to 12 planes. 

“When you’ve got five or six instructors all talking about the flight lesson with their students, it is sort of hard to find a space so the reason we need the hanger is that so everyone has a space to sit and work,” Lyn said. 

“The other thing is to just keep all of the planes out of the weather. Hot, cold, frosts whatever. Aircraft are exorbitantly priced to repaint them,” Mark said. 

Mark said the team chose local tradespeople for every step in the design and building process.  

“We have used all local people to build it, all the way right through to landscaping, air conditioning, the shed itself, the cement, the lighting, the electronics, the communications, the curtains, the tiles, plumbing, has all been local,” Mark said. 

“It’s going to benefit everybody in town. It’s different in a country town, people see that, people see this is bringing work into town,” Lyn said. 

Mark and Lyn said they are expecting plenty of people, including past students and friends of Fly Oz, to join in the celebrations but insist that people can come down at anytime to check out what happens at the airport. 

“People in town can come just see what we are doing… if they want to bring out grandkids to look at the airplanes and we have a spare instructor, we are happy to… show them a plane,” Lyn said.