Howdy!

From CrossingTheSkies, we wish you a fantastic and a happy 2010. To première this new year, here you have an awesome flash game named Airport Madness 2 (there’s an old version called Airport Madness)  that will blow up all your productivity at work.

And again, for this year I expect to increase my posting rate, as well as the quality and rigorousness of every single post. Of course, if you have any comment/proposal to this blog, CrossingTheSkies.com is willing to hear those and make this blog much more pleasant for all of you.

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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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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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Hey there! Welcome back to CrossingTheSkies. We have been off since January, but we are back on the road again.

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.

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From CrossingTheSkies staff, we wish you a nice and merry christmas, and a happy new year also! We hope you found this blog beautiful, and we thank you all for visiting it!

We expect a new year (2009) with plenty of new and fresh material, new posts, aviation news, aeronautics and some more.

See you around!

Andrew && Angel

Author: La Roche Spotters

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One of the key elements of an airport is the runway. In fact, if there is no runway, there is no airport anyway. The runway is the place where airplanes take off or touch down. Then, the runway features will be an important issue to bear in mind.

First of all we have the runway orientation. The runway direction will be a major fact in terms of airport operations. A wind intensity and direction research must be done in order to obtain and gather wind data, and then determine the most likely wind direction in that area. Now let’s talk about physical characteristics.

The two more important sizes are the runway length and the width. Depending on the aircraft expected to operate on that airport, you might use larger or shorter distances. There is no specific runway length established by FAA or ICAO, but could change from 200 meters to infinite (if we could have that region). About the runway width it is mandatory to be greater than 18 meters up to 60 meters (able to land an A380). There are other physical matters, like strips up to 150 meters (around the runway) and shoulders up to 15 meters (paved margins at both sides of the runway).

In addition, to promote the most rapid drainage of the water, there should be a transverse slope not greater than 2%. Longitudinal slopes cannot be greater than 2% (just imagine a 3000 meters runway, 2% would mean 60 meters of vertical variation).
 

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