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.

Bookmark It!

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

Bookmark It!

Or are they Bert & Ernie?

Bookmark It!

Today, I would like to show you an amazing guy, with an amazing car and an amazing skills. He is Ken Block, and he is a professional rally driver. But, in his free time, he usually drives his Subaru WRX STi, and makes the most brilliant stunts ever. If you put all this to Inyokern (IYK/KIYK), a municipal airport in California, you got the best show for sure.

The tv show, Top Gear, put their cameras and his host (Jeremy Clarkson) inside Ken’s car, to cast every move and every jum…well…let’s see the video. A whole lot of adrenaline.

Bookmark It!

These regular routes are the PACOTS (Pacific Organized Track System) going from the U.S. west coast to Japan and Honolulu. These are a set of predefined routes (it works like NAT routes), that start within US airspace (a fix) and they finish within Japan airspace (another fix). Between them, there’s just some waypoints defined with coordinates (there are no navaids to define them). So, an airplane departing from JFK had to go to the west coast and then, get en-route in these tracks.

United Airlines, Continental and other Japanese airlines started operating routes through the north pole. Then, they would save time, fuel and consequently money. But it’s not that easy. We all know that in the north pole it’s kinda cold, so it’s pretty likely that kerosene solidify. Nevertheless you can also descend to a lower altitude and modify your original route.

In addition, because of the earth’s magnetic field shape, the cosmic rays are much intense in that area. Therefore, the radiation exposure seems to be greater than the normal quantity. Some expert says that the total radiation exposure up there could be equal to 3 X-ray taken. Here you can appreciate a cross-polar route from JFK to Beijing (Japan) at Great Circle Mapper.

ATC services are not available, since we have no radar coverage. To sum up, it’s really an amazing adventure flying this kind of routes. Pilots must have good skills, and a big coat!

Bookmark It!

Virgin America will release an in-flight wireless Internet on all his flights by the second quarter of 2009. In fact, they flew a test flight from San Francisco to test the whole system and it kinda works.

This gadget, called GoGo, will not forbid any special content, but there will be some constraints though ( no Skype, no IP voice systems,…). The company’s philosophy is not to edit the content that passengers want to watch, but to offer WiFi in order to let the people choose what to watch. This system will be available above 1000 feet and it works with 3G technology.

Thence, get connected in the airplane will be $10 on short flights, and $13 on longer legs. You just need a laptop to get access. Virgin says that later in 2009 they will include an integrated in-flight entertainment system, that will give connectivity to people who don’t have laptops or PDA’s.

Of course, nowadays, a lot of airlines are willing to incorporate this devices to their birds.

Source: Original Link

Bookmark It!

EAA, The Spirit of Aviation, is the organzation who plan this whole event. They join thousands of people with aviation interests for one week at Oshkosh. Every general aviation pilot from the US (maybe from other countries as well) is willing to reach their vacations and fly to that little but crowded airport.    

Apart from homebuilts, antiques, classics, ultralights and rotorcraft, there’s also big birds like boeing 747 Cargo (Dreamlifter), jet fighters and commercial airplanes. Also, they arrange some courses to enroll right there, giving some thoughts about avionics, engines, structures or pilot skills.

If you are eager to join this event, you can do it now at EAA AirVenture Website and you’ll meet them on July 27th 2009.

Oshkosh AirVenture 2008                 Source: EAA

Bookmark It!