Everybody who has flown sometime, is familiar with the airport vehicles. There’s thousands of them around the world, different models and different brands. Today we gonna see some of them, and their main features.

Aircraft steps

This steps provide to passengers a connection from the ground to the airplane. It is often mounted on a light truck or a van, and it can be a extensible or fixed stairs.

Luggage truck

This little truck tows a whole load of packed trailers,  with all the passengers’ luggage. Although, the ULD containers are widespread. The Unit Load Device, is a container to load the baggage in, and they fit in the aircraft deck, so the luggage truck tows ULD instead of rusty trailers.

Fuel tanker

That is, a truck full of fuel (usually loaded with Jet A-1, but 100LL for GA is Ok as well) that provides airplanes with kerosene. It’s basically made up of a rear tank, a pump and a hose. Sometimes, they are simply a pump and they get the fuel from a ground hydrant.

Bendy bus

The bendy bus is comprised of two rigid parts, and it is articulated. They are used as people mover, to transport passengers from the terminal to the remote aircrafts. It’s also possible to use a single bus though.

Fire truck

The fire truck is a special motor vehicle, adapted to fight the fire in case of an emergency landing or a crash. They usually have a water tank and a water gun, able to launch compressed water to parts set on fire up to 200 feet.

Catering truck

This van serves the airplanes with the most extraordinary and exquisite (¬¬’) airline food, to make passengers feel comfortable when flying. It is basically a big metal box that can be lifted, in order to reach the aircraft height.

Aircraft tow

This tow is just a truck that it frequently lifts the front wheel of the aircraft, and push it back to the correct position to start the taxi to the runway. Sometimes, this little bugs cannot lift the aircraft, so there’s a towing bar that is attached to the front wheel and the truck just tow it back.

These are the most used vehicles used in an airport. Although, you can find some more out there. Now, have you always thought that airport vehicles were slow to hell? Top Gear don’t think so.

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There it goes!

Finally, the Seattle-born Boeing 787 Dreamliner is ready to go. After 2-year delay, the brand new B787 Dreamliner got his first flight at Paine Field, against Mother Nature. They completed all the basic flight tests to the main parts of the aiplane, including instruments and controls.

The Dreamliner will have room for 250 passengers (even though the airlines can actually modify the seating layout) and it will be able to fly up to 2800 miles (4600km) with any stopover. Boeing Co. has right now about 840 orders, giving them a worth of 140 billion US dollars.

Here is the first flight video. Notice the torsion of the wings because of the composite materials used in this bird.

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I always thought that downhill was for bikes, maybe a buggy could do that as well. These two guys decided to do that…with an airplane. In fact, they get the Highlander, an amateur-built STOL aircraft that can actually land in less than 150 feet (50 meters) and in steep runways up to 40º. Amazing.

There’s no doubt they from USA, not only for the accent, but also for the country-like music they listen to when flying.

This vid has been recorded from another hill, from the outside, so you can appreciate much better the acrobatics.

This vid instead, show you the acrobatics onboard the airplane.

Extract from LandingShort.com

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These two guys were trying to land at Gustaf III of Saint Barthélemy (a.k.a. St. Barth) (and the IATA/ICAO code is SBH/TFFJ) doing some jokes in one of the most difficult approach to an airport EVER!

Or are they Bert & Ernie?

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The recently unveiled Air France A380 that was flying from New York Kennedy Airport (KJFK) to Paris (LFPG) was forced to land back to New York, just 90 minutes after it took off. It is said that a minor computer problem could make that happens.

“It was Friday 30th at night. After 90 minutes of normal flight, the airplane was obliged to go back to the departure airport, New York Kennedy. The airplane is brand new, and it’s breaking in. The minor computer trouble caused some lost of accuracy on navigation parameters” an Air France spokesman said.

Air France A380

The Air France A380, the largest double-decker ever, lift his flight a week ago (Friday 20th) from Paris Roissy-Charles de Gaulle to New York – J.F. Kennedy with more than 500 passengers onboard.

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