– By Sharon Thatcher, Rural Builder magazine – Many people who fly for a hobby would like to take their planes home with them, and increasingly they are. Whether they’re building a personal hangar on a rural piece of property, or they’re part of a community airpark, the aviation hobby is alive and well, and builders who know a thing or two about the most important element of a hangar – the door – can be part of that trend.
David Coolman can offer more than a few pointers on the topic. He is a pilot himself, and a former sliding door salesman. When he saw an un-met need he launched his own company, Cool-Air Doors (soon to be renamed FoldTite Systems Inc.), Malta, N.Y. His primary source for materials is Cannonball:HNP.
“After leaving the service as a Marine in the Vietnam era, I fulfilled a lifelong dream and learned to fly,” he explains.
Even better, he got a job as a salesman that allowed him to fly to meet with customers. He was also able to flex his wings in product development, seeing some of his ideas incorporated into final door designs.
The doors Coolman was selling and developing, however, were primarily for the ag market. He was always pondering how to alter them to better fit the aviation market.
One idea that caught his attention was a product called the Fold-A-Side. “It was essentially a large closet door that hinged on the column and folded out away from the building but used a top track system, and this fit the post-frame market very well,” Coolman explains. “The design had drawbacks, and though it sold well in some markets, it was eventually discontinued.”
Coolman would come back to that door after experiencing a tragic ending in his personal life that eventually led to a new beginning in the state of New York. He redesigned the Fold-A-Side into a manually operated hangar door for the aviation community. He called his patented design the Horizontal Bi-Fold. He launched his company and sold his first product in 2002.
For the components to build his door, he eventually turned to Cannonball:HNP. Back in the 1970s, he had worked for HNP prior to its merger with Cannonball.
“I approached Dale Armstrong of Cannonball:HNP to see if there could be an arrangement having CNB contract-manufacture and stock the components needed to make the Cool-Air Inc. doors and even sell the doors. We started working together in 2004 and have had a very good experience. They were willing to inventory all the small hardware and components as well as the structure, track and hardware to make the doors.”
Trying to develop the perfect door for the aviation market is what drives Coolman. His second door, the Inside Slider, hit the market in 2004. “I had experience with radius track systems to a degree and doors that rolled inside the building, but found that none of them worked well,” he says. “With the cost of the aluminum extrusions relatively high and the general tendency to make sliding panels as wide as practical, I developed a multiple narrow panel design that needed quite a few more verticals than normal. Adding a couple of special design twists, such as spring loading the trolleys, made this door easy to operate.” The first Inside Slider was shipped to Texas in late 2004 from Cannonball. “The Inside Slider has become one of our best sellers and although we sold the first in Texas, it is designed to work well in ice and snow climates moving inside away from the snow.”
In looking for ways to make larger doors operable in high wind, Coolman developed a door that had a center trolley and opened half inside and half outside the building. The first Accordion Folding Door System shipped in 2006 also from Cannonball.
“Still not satisfied, I took the Inside Slider panel system and hinged it like a half accordion folding door and called this the Fold Tite Stacker,” Coolman says. “We shipped the first Fold-Tite Stacker in 2007. With the ability to be installed inside the building or out, with specific guide systems that work either in warm or cold climates, this has become our most important product.
“The Fold-Tite Stacker is the safest and easiest operating manual door that I know of. We use top hung box track because it allows the tightest stacking and closest coupling between the top of the door and the bottom of the header for a tighter seal. This is a really neat operating door. We offer our concealed stayroller system in cold climates and recommend a recessed guide channel be formed in the concrete in warm climates.”
In addition to Cannonball:HNP, Coolman uses A.L. Hansen of Waukegan, Ill., to source a premium lock system to work on all of his door designs. “This has an interior override that allows the locked door to be opened from the inside. They make a number of hardware parts that fit our door design better than regular sliding door hardware,” Coolman says.
Marlboro Hinge of Alliance, Ohio has provided a proprietary hinge that fits the Fold-Tite Stacker and will be adapted to other doors in the line.
For small quantities and prototyping, some components are made inhouse at Cool-Air/FoldTite Systems.
Looking to help grow the business, Coolman’s brother Phillip joined the enterprise three years ago. “We made it through the recession to this point and have a very positive outlook. With his help, we plan to grow our business many ways,” Coolman concludes.