Port
A port is a maritime commercial facility which may comprise one or more wharves where ships may dock to load and discharge passengers and cargo. Although situated on a sea coast or estuary, some ports, such as Hamburg and Duluth, are many miles inland, with access from the sea via river or canal. Today, by far the greatest growth in port development is in Asia, the continent with some of the world's largest and busiest ports, such as Singapore and the Chinese ports of Shanghai and Ningbo-Zhoushan. Whenever ancient civilisations engaged in maritime trade, they tended to develop sea ports. One of the world's oldest known artificial harbors is at Wadi al-Jarf on the Red Sea. Along with the finding of harbor structures, ancient anchors have been found. Other ancient ports include Guangzhou during Qin Dynasty China and Canopus, the principal Egyptian port for Greek trade before the foundation of Alexandria. In ancient Greece, Athens' port of Piraeus was the base for the Athenian fleet which played a crucial role in the Battle of Salamis against the Persians in 480 BCE.
In ancient India from 3700 BCE, Lothal was a prominent city of the Indus valley civilisation, located in the Bhāl region of the modern state of Gujarāt. Ostia Antica was the port of ancient Rome with Portus established by Claudius and enlarged by Trajan to supplement the nearby port of Ostia. In Japan, during the Edo period, the island of Dejima was the only port open for trade with Europe and received only a single Dutch ship per year, whereas Osaka was the largest domestic port and the main trade hub for rice. Nowadays, many of these ancient sites no longer function as modern ports. In more recent times, ports sometimes fall out of use. Rye, East Sussex, was an important English port in the Middle Ages, but the coastline changed and it is now 2 miles from the sea, while the ports of Ravenspurn and Dunwich have been lost to coastal erosion. Whereas early ports tended to be just simple harbours, modern ports tend to be multimodal distribution hubs, with transport links using sea, canal, road and air routes.
Successful ports are located to optimize access to an active hinterland, such as the London Gateway. Ideally, a port will grant easy navigation to ships, will give shelter from wind and waves. Ports are on estuaries, where the water may be shallow and may need regular dredging. Deep water ports such as Milford Haven are less common, but can handle larger ships with a greater draft, such as super tankers, Post-Panamax vessels and large container ships. Other businesses such as regional distribution centres and freight-forwarders and other processing facilities find it advantageous to be located within a port or nearby. Modern ports will have specialised cargo-handling equipment, such as gantry cranes, reach stackers and forklift trucks. Ports have specialised functions: some tend to cater for passenger ferries and cruise ships; some third world countries and small islands such as Ascension and St Helena still have limited port facilities, so that ships must anchor off while their cargo and passengers are taken ashore by barge or launch.
In modern times, ports decline, depending on current economic trends. In the UK, both the ports of Liverpool and Southampton were once significant in the transatlantic passenger liner business. Once airliner traffic decimated that trade, both ports diversified to container cargo and cruise ships. Up until the 1950s the Port of London was a major international port on the River Thames, but changes in shipping and the use of containers and larger ships, have led to its decline. Thamesport, a small semi-automated container port thrived for some years, but has been hit hard by competition from the emergent London Gateway port and logistics hub. In mainland Europe, it is normal for ports to be publicly owned, so that, for instance, the ports of Rotterdam and Amsterdam are owned by the state and by the cities themselves. By contrast, in the UK all ports are in private hands, such as Peel Ports who own the Port of Liverpool, John Lennon Airport and the Manchester Ship Canal. Though modern ships tend to have bow-thrusters and stern-thrusters, many port authorities still require vessels to use pilots and tugboats for manoeuvering large ships in tight quarters.
For instance, ships approaching the Belgian port of Antwerp, an inland port on the River Scheldt, are obliged to use Dutch pilots when navigating on that part of the estuary that belongs to the Netherlands. Ports with international traffic have customs facilities; the terms "port" and "seaport" are used for different types of port facilities that handle ocean-going vessels, river port is used for river traffic, such as barges and other shallow-draft vessels. A dry port is an inland intermodal terminal directly connected by road or rail to a seaport and operating as a centre for the transshipment of sea cargo to inland destinations. A fishing port is a harbor for landing and distributing fish, it may be a recreational facility, but it is commercial. A fishing port is the only port that depends on an ocean product, depletion of fish may cause a fishing port to be uneconomical. An inland port is a port on a navigable lake, river, or canal with access to a sea or ocean, which therefore allows a ship to sail from the ocean inland to the port to load or unload its cargo.
An example of this is the St. Lawrence Seaway which allows ships to travel from the Atlantic Ocean several thousand kilometers inland to Great Lakes ports like Toronto, Duluth-Superior, C
El Dorado International Airport
El Dorado International Airport is an international airport serving Bogotá, Colombia and its surrounding areas. The airport is located in the Fontibón district of Bogotá, although it extends into the Engativá district and the municipality of Funza in the Western Savanna Province of the Cundinamarca Department. In 2017, it served 31,000,000 passengers, 770,000 metric tons of cargo, 304,330 aircraft movements; this makes El Dorado the third busiest airport in Latin America in terms of passenger traffic, the second busiest in terms of aircraft movements, the busiest in terms of cargo. El Dorado is by far the busiest and most important airport in Colombia, accounting for just under half of the country's air traffic. El Dorado is a hub for the Colombian flag-carrier Avianca, LATAM Colombia, Wingo, a number of cargo companies, it is owned by the Government of Colombia and operated by Operadora Aeroportuaria Internacional, a consortium composed of Colombian construction and engineering firms and the Swiss company Flughafen Zürich AG, the company that operates Zurich International Airport.
The airport has been named the best airport in South America by World Airport Awards. El Dorado received four-star certification and its staff was rated the best in South America by Skytrax, as well as achieving 42nd place in Skytrax's World's Top 100 Airports in 2017; the El Dorado Passenger Terminal was designed during the government of General Gustavo Rojas Pinilla. Its construction began in 1955 and entered in service by December 1959, replacing Techo Internatioal Airport, the city's main airport since 1930. Before its inauguration, Soledad International Airport in Barranquilla was the nation's air hub, was relegated to secondary importance in the country when El Dorado Airport opened; the new terminal consisted of several taxiways, maintenance platforms, parking areas, a cellar, passenger halls, Mezzanine areas and other amenities. Its second floor consisted of the departures area with executive waiting restaurants; the third floor consisted of offices for the airlines and of other airport related services.
The fourth floor held the administrative offices and its dependencies which accounted through to the fifth floor. The sixth floor contained the dependencies of meteorology and power station of air navigation aids of the ECA; the seventh floor held the route control facilities for the runways and taxiways and the eighth floor contained air traffic radar controllers. The ninth floor contained the airport's electrical maintenance and offices, the tenth floor held the control tower and air traffic controllers. In 1973, the airport accomplished a milestone by serving nearly three million passengers and processing nearly 5 million units of luggage; that year turned out to be one of the most prosperous for the industry of aviation, registering high passenger growth in both domestic and international traffic. It became necessary for a second runway at El Dorado with concerns that the explosive growth would lead to over congestion in the future. In 1981, Avianca undertook the construction of the Puente Aéreo Terminal inaugurated by President Julio César Turbay Ayala, to serve its high density flights from Bogotá to Cali, Medellín, Miami and New York City.
In 1990, the Special Administrative Unit of Civil Aeronautics moved to the third floor in the main building. During this same year, the Centro de Estudios Aeronáuticos and at the east part of the airport the building for the National Center for Aeronavigation were constructed. In 1998, the second runway was opened. On 10 December 1998, Avianca opened its hub in Bogotá, offering an estimated 6,000 possible connections per week, including greater numbers of frequencies and destinations served. Connections between domestic and international destinations are operated directly and through codesharing agreements with airlines such as Delta Air Lines, Air Canada and Air France. Operations out of the Bogotá hub allow travelers to connect between domestic destinations, from a domestic destination to an international destination, from an international destination to a domestic city, between two international destinations and allows for simpler codeshare connections; the hub features facilities for easier transits, such as exclusive check-in counters for travelers in transit, buses for internal transportation between Puente Aéreo and El Dorado terminals, a special lounge for international transit passengers to avoid having to go through Colombian customs and immigration between transits.
In 1981, Avianca undertook the construction of a new exclusive terminal to be called the Puente Aéreo, inaugurated by President Julio Cesar Turbay Ayala. Avianca's original purpose for the terminal was for flights serving Cali, Medellín, Miami and New York. During the first years of operation and until 2005 Avianca moved all of its domestic operations to the Puente Aéreo and shifted the Miami and New York operations to the main terminal; this allowed them to streamline their operations by using space assigned to customs and immigration for passenger gates and lounges. The culmination of this process came in 2006 when the airline undertook extensive renovations on the building. However, the airline was mindful of the current renovations of El Dorado. One possible plan will be demolishing the Puente Aéreo Terminal, Main terminal and old cargo buildings which will be replaced with a new mega terminal. Many
Mississauga
Mississauga is a city in the Canadian province of Ontario and a suburb of Toronto. It is situated on the shores of Lake Ontario in the Regional Municipality of Peel, bordering Toronto. With a population of 721,599 as of the 2016 census, Mississauga is the sixth-most populous municipality in Canada, third-most in Ontario, second-most in the Greater Toronto Area; the growth of Mississauga is attributed to its proximity to Toronto. During the latter half of the 20th century, the city attracted a multicultural population and built up a thriving central business district, it is home to Toronto Pearson International Airport, Canada's busiest airport, as well as the headquarters of many Canadian and multinational corporations. Residents of the city are referred to as Mississaugans. At the time of the arrival of the Europeans in the 1600s, both Iroquoian- and Algonquian-speaking peoples lived in the Credit River Valley area. One of the First Nations groups the French traders found around the Credit River area were the Algonquian Mississaugas, a tribe from the Georgian Bay area.
The name "Mississauga" comes from the Anishinaabe word Misi-zaagiing, meaning " Great River-mouth". By 1700 the Mississaugas had driven away the Iroquois, yet during the Beaver Wars they played a neutral or post-emptive role. Toronto Township, consisting of most of present-day Mississauga, was formed on 2 August 1805 when officials from York purchased 84,000 acres of land from the Mississaugas. In January 2010, the Mississaugas and the federal government settled a land claim, in which the band of aboriginal people received $145,000,000, as just compensation for their land and lost income; the original villages settled included: Lakeview, Cooksville, Erindale, Lorne Park, Port Credit and Summerville. This region would become known as Toronto Township. Part of northeast Mississauga, including the Airport lands and Malton were part of Toronto Gore Township. After the land was surveyed, the Crown gave much of it in the form of land grants to United Empire Loyalists who emigrated from the Thirteen Colonies during and after the American Revolution, as well as loyalists from New Brunswick.
A group of settlers from New York City arrived in the 1830s. The government wanted to compensate the Loyalists for property lost in the colonies and encourage development of what was considered frontier. In 1820, the government purchased additional land from the Mississaugas. Additional settlements were established, including: Barbertown, Burnhamthorpe, Derry West, Malton, Meadowvale Village, Mount Charles, Streetsville. European-Canadian growth led to the eventual displacement of the Mississaugas. In 1847, the government relocated them to a reserve in the Grand River Valley, near present-day Hagersville. Pre-confederation, the Township of Toronto was formed as a local government. Except for small villages, some gristmills and brickworks served by railway lines, most of present-day Mississauga was agricultural land, including fruit orchards, through much of the 19th and first half of the 20th century. In the 1920s, cottages were constructed along the shores of Lake Ontario as weekend getaway houses for city dwellers.
17 years in 1937, 1,410.8 acres of land was sold to build the Malton Airport. It became Canada's busiest airport which put the end to the community of Elmbank; the Queen Elizabeth Way highway, one of the first controlled access highways in the world, opened from Highway 27 to Highway 10 in Port Credit, in 1935 and expanded to Hamilton and Niagara in 1939. The first prototypical suburban developments occurred around the same time, in the area south of the Dixie Road/QEW interchange. Development in general moved west from there over time and around established communities. Large-scale developments, such as Erin Mills and Meadowvale sprang up in the 1968 and 1969 respectively; the township settlements of Lakeview, Lorne Park, Erindale, Dixie, Meadowvale Village, Malton were amalgamated by a somewhat unpopular provincial decree in 1968 to form the Town of Mississauga. At the time, both Port Credit and Streetsville were remained as separate entities. A 1965 call for public input on naming the town received thousands of letters offering hundreds of different suggestions.
The town name was chosen by plebiscite over "Sheridan". Political will, as well as a belief that a larger city would be a hegemony in Peel County, kept Port Credit and Streetsville as independent island towns encircled by the Town of Mississauga. In 1974, both were annexed by Mississauga; that year, the sprawling Square One Shopping Centre opened. On 10 November 1979, a 106-car freight train derailed on the CP rail line while carrying explosive and poisonous chemicals just north of the intersection of Mavis Road and Dundas Street. One of the tank cars carrying propane exploded, since other tank cars were carrying chlorine, the decision was made to evacuate nearby residents. With the possibility of a deadly cloud of chlorine gas spreading through Mississauga, 218,000 people were evacuated. Residents were allowed to return home. At the time, it was the largest peacetime evacuation in North American history. Due to the speed and efficiency in which it was conducted, many cities studied and modelled their own emergency plans after Mississauga's.
For many years afterwards, the name "Mississauga" was, to Canadians, associated with a major rail disaster. North American telephone customer
Aircraft canopy
An aircraft canopy is the transparent enclosure over the cockpit of some types of aircraft. An aircraft canopy provides a controlled and sometimes pressurized environment for the aircraft's occupants, allows for a greater field of view over a traditional flight deck. A canopy's shape is a compromise designed to minimize aerodynamic drag, while maximizing visibility for pilots and other crewmembers. Early aircraft had no canopies at all; the pilots were exposed to the weather, although most flying was done in good weather. Through World War I most aircraft had no canopy, although they had a small windshield to deflect the prop wash and wind from hitting the pilot in the face. In the 1920s and 1930s, the increasing speed and altitude of airplanes necessitated a enclosed cockpit and canopies became more common. Early canopies were made of numerous pieces of flat glass held in position by muntins; the muntins reduced visibility, problematic for military aircraft. Glass canopies were much heavier than acrylic canopies, which were first introduced shortly before World War II.
The acrylic bubble canopy was used on aircraft such as the Supermarine Spitfire and Westland Whirlwind, which gave better all-round visibility and reduced weight. It is still being used today on most fighter aircraft. In the 1970s, US aviation artist Keith Ferris invented a false canopy to paint on the underside of military aircraft, directly underneath the front of the plane, the purpose of, to confuse an enemy so they do not know in what direction the aircraft is headed; this ruse was inspired by animals and fishes that have similar markings on the head and tail, so they can confuse other creatures. Pilots remain skeptical of this feature, asserting that if the enemy is close enough to see the marking, they are too close to be fooled by it. On many high-performance military aircraft, the canopy is an integral part of the ejection seat system; the pilot cannot be ejected from the aircraft until the canopy is no longer in the path of the ejection seat. In most ejection seat equipped aircraft, the canopy is blown upwards and rearwards by explosive charges.
The relative wind blows the canopy away from the ejection path. However, on some aircraft, such as the McDonnell Douglas AV-8B Harrier II, the pilot may be forced to eject when in a hover, or when going too slow for the relative wind to move the canopy out of the path of the ejection seat. In that situation, the pilot could impact the canopy when ejecting. To overcome that possibility, some aircraft have a thin cord of plastic explosive zig-zagging across the canopy over the pilot's head. In the event of an ejection, the explosive cord is activated first; the ejection seat and pilot is launched through the shattered canopy. Most modern acrylic canopies are vacuum formed. A sheet of acrylic is secured to a female mould the entire assembly is heated in an oven until the acrylic is pliable; the air is removed from the mould and the acrylic sheet is drawn into it, forming the shape of the canopy. The acrylic is trimmed to the appropriate shape and attached to an aluminum or composite frame; some one-off canopies are made in a similar fashion, but since a mould would be too time-consuming to make, the acrylic is heated and vacuum formed until it approximates the shape the builder is seeking.
This type of construction is less precise and each canopy is unique. If multiple canopies will be needed, a mould is always used. Have Glass is the code name for a series of RCS reduction measures for the F-16 fighter, its primary aspect is the addition of an indium-tin-oxide layer to the gold tinted cockpit canopy, reflective to radar frequencies. An ordinary canopy would let radar signals straight through where they would strike the many edges and corners inside and bounce back to the radar source, the reflective layer dissipates these signals instead. Overall, Have Glass reduces an F-16's RCS by some 15 percent; the gold tint reduces glare from the sun to improve the pilot's visibility. The Malcolm Hood is a type of aircraft canopy developed for the Supermarine Spitfire, its concept proved valuable for other aircraft such as the North American Aviation-produced P-51B & C Mustangs as retrofit items, standard on versions of the Vought F4U Corsair, somewhat emulated on the models of the Luftwaffe's Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter.
The canopy was manufactured by the British company R Co which gave its name. Instead of taking a straight line between the canopy frames, the hood was bulged outward; this gave the pilot a better view to the rear....the Corsair's initial deficiencies were being worked out on a concurrent basis... The 689th production F4U-1 featured a number of significant changes; the most noticeable was that the cockpit was raised 18 centimeters to improve the pilot's forward view, a bulged canopy, along the lines of the "Malcolm Hood" used on Spitfires, replaced the original "birdcage" framed canopy to provide better all-round field of view. Bubble canopy
United Airlines
United Airlines, Inc. referred to as just United, is a major American airline headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. United operates a large domestic and international route network, with an extensive presence in the Asia-Pacific region. United is a founding member of the Star Alliance, the world's largest airline alliance with a total of 28 member airlines. Regional service is operated by independent carriers under the brand name United Express. United was established by the amalgamation of several airlines in the late 1920s, the oldest of these being Varney Air Lines, founded in 1926. United has seven hubs, with Chicago–O'Hare being its largest in terms of passengers carried and the number of departures; the company employs over 86,000 people while maintaining its headquarters in Chicago's Willis Tower. Through the airline's parent company, United Continental Holdings, it is publicly traded under NYSE: UAL with a market capitalization of over US$21 billion as of January 2018. United traces its roots to Varney Air Lines, which Walter Varney founded in 1926 in Idaho.
Continental Airlines is the successor to Speed Lanes, which Varney had founded by 1932 and whose name changed to Varney Speed Lines in 1934. VAL flew the first contracted air mail flight in the U. S. on April 6, 1926. In 1927, William Boeing founded Boeing Air Transport to operate air mail routes under contract with the United States Post Office Department. In 1929, Boeing merged his company with Pratt & Whitney to form the United Aircraft and Transport Corporation which set about buying, in the space of just 28 months, Pacific Air Transport, Stout Air Services, VAL, National Air Transport, as well as numerous equipment manufacturers at the same time. On March 28, 1931, UATC formed United Air Lines, Inc. as a holding company for its airline subsidiaries. In late 2006, Continental Airlines and United had preliminary merger discussions. On April 16, 2010, those discussions resumed; the board of directors of Continental and UAL Corporation agreed on May 2, 2010, to combine operations, contingent upon shareholder and regulatory approval.
On October 1, 2010, the UAL Corporation changed its name to Inc.. The carriers planned to begin merging their operations in 2011; the merged airline began operating under a single air operator's certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration on November 30, 2011. On March 3, 2012, United and Continental merged their passenger service systems, frequent-flier programs, websites, which eliminated the Continental brand with the exception of its logo. United operates to 231 destinations and 125 international destinations in 48 countries across five continents. United operates seven hubs. Chicago–O'Hare – United's largest hub and its hub for the Midwest. United flies 36 million passengers through O'Hare every year, about 99,000 people per day, making it the busiest airline at the airport. United's corporate headquarters are in Chicago. Denver – United's hub for the central and western United States. In 2017, United flew 25.9 million passengers through DIA or about 71,000 people per day. As of December 2017, United has about 42% of the market share at DIA making it the airport's largest airline.
Houston–Intercontinental – United's hub for the Southern United States and primary gateway to Latin America. About 33.5 million passengers fly through Houston on United every year, or about 91,000 people per day. United has about 78% of the seat share at Bush, making it the airport's largest tenant. Los Angeles – United's secondary hub for the West Coast and gateway to Asia and Australia. About 10 million passengers fly through LAX on about 28,000 people per day. United has 15% of the market share at LAX, making it the third-biggest carrier at the airport. Newark – United's primary hub for the East Coast and a gateway to Europe, Latin America and Asia. About 28.5 million passengers fly on United through Newark every year, or about 78,000 people per day. United controls about 81% of the slots at Newark and carries about 68% of all passengers at the airport. United uses part of Terminal A for United Express Flights. San Francisco – United's primary hub for the West Coast and gateway to Asia and Australia.
About 22 million passengers pass through SFO every year on United, about 60,000 people per day. United has about 46% of the market share at San Francisco International, making it the biggest airline at the airport. Washington–Dulles – United's secondary hub for the East Coast and gateway to Europe. United has about 65% of the market share at Washington Dulles, making it the largest airline at the airport. About 14 million passengers fly through Dulles every year on United, about 38,465 people per day. United Airlines is a member of the Star Alliance and has codeshare agreements with the following airlines: In addition to the above codeshares, United has entered into joint ventures with the following airlines: Air Canada Air New Zealand All Nippon Airways Austrian Airlines Brussels Airlines Lufthansa Swiss International Air Lines As of March 2019, United Airlines operated a fleet of 778 aircraft. On July 20, 2011, American Airlines announced an order for 460 narrowbody jets, including 260 Airbus A320s.
The order broke Boeing's monopoly with the airline and forced Boeing into the re-engined 737 MAX. This sale included a Most-Favoured-Customer Clause, which requires Airbus to refund to American any difference between the price paid by American and a lower price paid by United or another airline; this perpetuates United's having a Boeing-skewed fleet. On September 22, 2012, United became the first American airline to take delivery of Boeing 787 aircraft. Un
Airstair
An airstair is a set of steps built into an aircraft so that passengers may board and alight the aircraft. The stairs are built into a clamshell-style door on the aircraft. Airstairs eliminate the need for passengers to use a mobile stairway or jetway to board or exit the aircraft, providing more independence from ground services; some of the earliest aircraft to feature airstairs were the Martin 2-0-2 and Martin 4-0-4. Some models of the Douglas DC-3 were retrofitted with airstairs; as airport infrastructure has developed, the need for airstairs has decreased, as jetways or mobile stairways are available. Wide-body aircraft employ airstairs, as the doors are higher above the ground than narrow-body aircraft. One notable exception is the Lockheed L-1011, the only wide-body aircraft to feature full-height airstairs; the only other wide-bodies with airstairs, the VC-25 and the Ilyushin Il-86, have airstairs contained in the cargo hold, with steps inside the cabin to access these stairs. Some aircraft, like the Boeing 727 and McDonnell Douglas DC-9, were designed to improve ground services, with passengers deplaning from the front as the aircraft is serviced from the rear, enabling quicker turnarounds.
Airstairs are used as a security measure, for example on aircraft carrying the President of the United States, allowing the aircraft to be boarded by VIPs at any time - with or without the cooperation of ground services. Ventral airstairs are featured on most tail-engined airliners, such as the Boeing 727, the McDonnell Douglas DC-9, MD-80 and MD-90, the BAC 1-11, the Yakovlev Yak-40/Yak-42 series, are incorporated as ramps which lower from the fuselage; the Ilyushin Il-86 has three airstairs on the port side. The most common type of airstair is found in most business aircraft, regional jets, other small airliners, a stair built into the inside of the main passenger door, lowered to the outside. Aircraft such as the Fokker F-28 series and the VFW-Fokker 614 made this design popular; the stairs are part of the door rather than an attached stair. This design is efficient and because the aircraft which use it sit low to the ground, the design can stay simple and not add complexity or weight to the design, one of the biggest problems with airstair assemblies.
The design has been used with a single-length set of extension stairs on aircraft such as the cargo compartment of the widebody Ilyushin Il-86, Boeing VC-25, the belly lounges of three Lockheed L-1011s. Another widespread type of airstair is used for forward doors; the stair folds and stows under the floor of the door and is deployed from the fuselage below the forward door. This type of airstair is found on many short-range aircraft such as Boeing 737s, DC-9s, some Airbus A320 series aircraft; the mechanism is quite heavy. A unique airstair design was used for the aft doors of 737 Combi aircraft, which consisted of a clamshell door which dropped down to open much like a business aircraft, but had stairs which were stored trifold in the curve of the door, which would unfold to the ground; this system was cumbersome, was susceptible to damage, thus has been removed by many of its users. The most unusual airstair design was found on the Lockheed L-1011, a full-height airstair, stored in a cargo compartment and allowed access from the right aft passenger door to the ground.
This design was so large and heavy, it took up valuable cargo space, that it was used. The original On-Board Folding Airstairs were designed by Winters Aircraft Engineering Company over 30 years ago. Airweld Incorporated is the current STC holder and has FAA PMA for all of the original STC’s issued to Winters, as well as STC’s issued to subsequent manufactures including Kaiser Aerospace, WAPCO, Advanced Aerospace; the On-Board Folding Airstairs can be found in use on many U. S. and Foreign Military and Government Aircraft including the Boeing E4B as well as VIP aircraft around the world. The On-Board Folding Airstairs is a multi-section airstair that can be installed at either the forward, center, or aft doors; when retracted/closed, the airstair sits on a track and is stowed in a closet either Forward, Aft, or Transverse. A rear, airstair can be used as a safe means of parachuting from an airliner, equipped with one; this was attempted on 24 November 1971 by an unknown hijacker known as D. B.
Cooper, who jumped from a Boeing 727 along with US$200,000 in ransom money. However it is unknown. Subsequently, a number of individuals carried out copycat hijackings against Boeing 727s and safely parachuted to the ground, although all were apprehended by the authorities. To prevent this, Boeing 727s were ordered to be fitted with a simple device known as a Cooper vane that prevented the ventral airstair from being opened in flight. During the 2012 Boeing 727 crash experiment, a flight crew took off in the Boeing 727, to be crashed and flew it to a pre-selected desert site before safely parachuting from the ventral hatch, it was deliberately flown into the ground under remote control. Jet bridge Evacuation slide Period photographs of commercial airliners with lowered airstairs, from the Ed Coates collection: Douglas DC-3 of Southwest Airways Martin 2-0-2, Martin 4-0-4 of Pacific Air Lines The Airstair of Yakovlev Yak-42D Airliners.net
Toronto Pearson International Airport
Lester B. Pearson International Airport, corporately branded as Toronto Pearson International Airport, is the primary international airport serving Toronto, its metropolitan area, surrounding region known as the Golden Horseshoe in the province of Ontario, Canada, it is the largest and busiest airport in Canada, the second-busiest international air passenger gateway in the Americas, the 31st-busiest airport in the world by passenger traffic, handling 49.5 million passengers in 2018. The airport is named in honour of Lester B. Pearson, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and 14th Prime Minister of Canada. Toronto Pearson is located 22.5 kilometres northwest of Downtown Toronto, with the majority of the airport situated in the adjacent city of Mississauga, a small portion of the airfield extending into Toronto's western district of Etobicoke. It features five runways and two passenger terminals along with numerous cargo and maintenance facilities on a site that covers 1,867 hectares. Pearson Airport is the primary hub for Air Canada.
It serves as a hub for WestJet, cargo airline FedEx Express and as a base of operations for Air Transat and Sunwing Airlines. Pearson is operated by the Greater Toronto Airports Authority as part of Transport Canada's National Airports System, is the largest airport in the world with facilities for United States border preclearance. An extensive network of non-stop domestic flights is operated from Toronto Pearson by several airlines to all major and many secondary cities across all provinces of Canada; as of 2019, over 75 airlines operate around 1,250 daily departures from the airport to more than 180 destinations across all six of the world's inhabited continents. In 1937, the Government of Canada agreed to support the building of two airports in the Toronto area. One site selected was on the Toronto Islands in Downtown Toronto, the present-day Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport; the other site selected was an area northwest of Toronto near the town of Malton, intended to serve as an alternate to the downtown airport but instead would become its successor.
The first scheduled passenger flight at the Malton Airport was a Trans-Canada Air Lines DC-3 that landed on August 29, 1939. During World War II, the Royal Canadian Air Force established a base at the airport as a component of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. RCAF Station Malton was home to several training schools and was in operation between 1940-1946. In 1958, the City of Toronto sold the Malton Airport to the Government of Canada, which subsequently changed the name of the facility to Toronto International Airport, under the management of Transport Canada; the airport was renamed Lester B. Pearson International Airport in 1984, in honour of Toronto-born Lester B. Pearson, the fourteenth Prime Minister of Canada and recipient of the 1957 Nobel Peace Prize; the Greater Toronto Airports Authority assumed management and control of the airport in 1996, has used the name Toronto Pearson International Airport for the facility since the transition. Toronto Pearson International Airport has two active public terminals, Terminal 1 and Terminal 3.
Both terminals are designed to handle all three sectors of travel, which results in terminal operations at Pearson being grouped for airlines and airline alliances, rather than for domestic and international routes. Terminal 2 was demolished and replaced with an expanded Terminal 1. A third public terminal, the Infield Concourse acts as an extension of Terminal 3 providing additional bridged gates. Measuring over 346,000 square metres, Terminal 1 is the largest airport terminal in Canada and the 12th largest in the world by floor space. Air Canada and all other Star Alliance airlines that serve Pearson are based at Terminal 1. Non-alliance airline Emirates uses the terminal. Terminal 1 was designed by a joint venture known as Airports Architects Canada made up of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, Adamson Associates Architects and Moshe Safdie and Associates, it contains 58 gates: D1, D3, D5, D7-D12, D20, D22, D24, D26, D28, D31–D45, D51, D53, D55, D57, F60–F63, F64A–F64B, F65, F66A–F66B, F/E67–F/E81, F59, F82-F83, F84-F99.
Two of the gates, E73 and E75, can accommodate the Airbus A380. Along with the standard customs and immigration facilities, Terminal 1 contains special customs "B" checkpoints along the international arrivals walkway. Passengers connecting from an international or trans-border arrival to another international departure in Terminal 1 go to one of these checkpoints for passport control and immigration checks are directed to Pier F for departure; this alleviates the need to recheck bags, pass through security screening, relieves congestion in the primary customs hall. An eight-level parking garage with 8,400 public parking spaces across from Terminal 1 is connected to the terminal by several elevated and enclosed pedestrian walkways. Terminal 1 is home to the world's fastest moving walkway. Terminal 3 is a 178,000-square-metre facility designed by B+H Architects and Scott Associates Architects Inc, it is used by all SkyTeam and Oneworld airlines that serve Pearson, along with Air Transat, Etihad Airways, Sunwing Airlines, WestJet and all other airlines that are unaffiliated with an airline alliance.
Terminal 3 has 46 gates: B1a-B1d, B2a, B2c, B3-B5
