General aviation
General Aviation represents the'private transport' and recreational flying component of aviation. General aviation is the name or term given to all civil aviation aircraft operations with the exception of commercial air transport or aerial work, they are flight activities not involving commercial air transportation of passengers, cargo or mail for remuneration or hire, or an aerial work operation such as agriculture, photography, surveying and patrol, search and rescue, aerial advertisement, etc. It covers certain commercial and private flights that can be carried out under both visual flight and instrument flight rules, such as light aircraft and private jets or helicopters. General aviation thus represents the'private transport' component of aviation; the International Civil Aviation Organization defines civil aviation aircraft operations in three categories: General Aviation, Aerial Work and Commercial Air Transport. The International Council of Aircraft Owner and Pilot Associations includes the following definitions for General Aviation aircraft activities: Corporate Aviation: Company own-use flight operations Fractional Ownership Operations: aircraft operated by a specialized company on behalf of two or more co-owners Business Aviation: self-flown for business purposes Personal/Private Travel: travel for personal reasons/personal transport Air Tourism: self-flown incoming/outgoing tourism Recreational Flying: powered/powerless leisure flying activities Air Sports: Aerobatics, Air Races, Rallies etc.
In 2003 the European Aviation Safety Agency was established as the central EU regulator, taking over responsibility for legislating airworthiness and environmental regulation from the national authorities. Of the 21,000 civil aircraft registered in the UK, 96 percent are engaged in GA operations, annually the GA fleet accounts for between 1.25 and 1.35 million hours flown. There are 28,000 Private Pilot Licence holders, 10,000 certified glider pilots; some of the 19,000 pilots who hold professional licences are engaged in GA activities. GA operates from more than 1,800 airports and landing sites or aerodromes, ranging in size from large regional airports to farm strips. GA is regulated by the Civil Aviation Authority, although regulatory powers are being transferred to the European Aviation Safety Agency; the main focus is on standards of airworthiness and pilot licensing, the objective is to promote high standards of safety. General aviation is popular in North America, with over 6,300 airports available for public use by pilots of general aviation aircraft.
In comparison, scheduled flights operate from around 560 airports in the U. S. According to the U. S. Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, general aviation provides more than one percent of the United States' GDP, accounting for 1.3 million jobs in professional services and manufacturing. Most countries have authorities that oversee all civil aviation, including general aviation, adhering to the standardized codes of the International Civil Aviation Organization. Examples include the Federal Aviation Administration in the United States, the Civil Aviation Authority in the United Kingdom, Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe in Zimbabwe, the Luftfahrt-Bundesamt in Germany, the Bundesamt für Zivilluftfahrt in Switzerland, Transport Canada in Canada, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority in Australia, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation in India and Iran Civil Aviation Organization in Iran. Aviation accident rate statistics are estimates. According to the U. S. National Transportation Safety Board, in 2005 general aviation in the United States suffered 1.31 fatal accidents for every 100,000 hours of flying in that country, compared to 0.016 for scheduled airline flights.
In Canada, recreational flying accounted for 0.7 fatal accidents for every 1000 aircraft, while air taxi accounted for 1.1 fatal accidents for every 100,000 hours. More experienced GA pilots appear safer, although the relations between flight hours, accident frequency, accident rates are complex and difficult to assess. Environmental impact of aviation List of current production certified light aircraftAssociationsAircraft Owners and Pilots Association Canadian Owners and Pilots Association Experimental Aircraft Association General Aviation Manufacturers Association National Business Aviation Association International Aircraft Owners and Pilots Associations European General Aviation Safety Team "No Plane No Gain" website about business aviation Save-GA.org website concerned with General Aviation in the United States "GA price index". Flight International. 13 Oct 1979
Red-Greens (Sweden)
The Red-Greens is an umbrella term which refers to the three left-wing political parties of Sweden. The term'red-greens' originates from the launch of a left-wing political and electoral alliance between the parties on 7 December 2008; this alliance, based on the Norwegian Red-Green Coalition, consisted of the Social Democrats, the Green Party and the Left Party which were in opposition to the centre-right Alliance coalition government. The three component parties of the Red-Greens, which faced the voters as three separate parties in the 2010 general election, aimed to reach agreements on significant areas of policy before the election; the parties aimed to achieve a majority in the following Swedish general election on 19 September 2010, in an unsuccessful bid to form a coalition government. The Red-Green pact was put to a pause on 26 October 2010, was dissolved on 26 November; the Red-Greens as a political alliance was revived following the 2014 general election, in the form of a coalition government - the Löfven Cabinet.
The government consisted of the Social Democrats and Greens and was supported in the Riksdag by the Left Party. The three parties won 144 out of 349 Riksdag seats in the 2018 general election; the coalition consists of one supporting non-member. The Green Party represented by spokespersons Isabella Lövin and Gustav Fridolin, a green party which had 16 of 349 seats in the Riksdag; the Left Party led by a socialist party which has 28 of 349 seats in the Riksdag. The Feminist Initiative led by Gudrun Schyman and Gita Nabavi, a radical feminist party which only won seats in thirteen municipalities, including in Sweden's largest cities of Gothenburg and Stockholm where it became part of governing "red-green-pink" coalitions. F! is part of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats like SAP. The Kiruna Party led by Lars Törnman, a regional social democratic party, active in Kiruna Municipality as part of a KIP-MP-V municipal government between 2002 and 2006, as part of a KIP-Red-Green government between 2008 and 2010.
The Red-Greens took their cue from the centre-right Alliance, the co-operation between four centre-right parties, considered to have contributed to these parties' success in the 2006 general election. The cooperation represented a significant development since the Social Democrats the party leadership of Mona Sahlin have been sceptical about too close a co-operation with the Left Party, a Communist Party until 1990; the Social Democratic minority government led by Göran Persson before the 2006 election had much closer cooperation with the Green Party than with the Left Party. In October 2008 a deeper co-operation between the Social Democrats and the Green Party was announced, a common shadow budget for 2009 was presented. In December 2008, the Left Party was included in the co-operation and the Red-Greens was launched. In the 2010 election, the Red-Greens lost 22 seats in comparison with 2006 elections; the Social Democrats lost 5%, thus scoring their worst result since 1914. The Green Party made a significant transformation from the smallest elected party to the third largest party during the term, overtaking the Left Party, the Christian Democrats, the Liberals and the Centre Party.
The Red-Green pact lost in 2010 elections and was put on pause on 26 October 2010, dissolved on 26 November. In the 2014 election, The Social Democrats were the largest party, but they didn’t have enough seats to form a majority, prompting them to make a deal with the Green Party in order to form a coalition, they sought support from the Left Party, reviving the alliance between the Social Democrats and The Greens. A minority government, the coalition which only held 138 out of 349 seats depended on the support from the Left Party and the opposing Alliance parties; the Red-Greens participated together in 2018 election. This is the worst result of the left-wing parties since 1914. Alliance Red-red-green coalition Red–green alliance Red–green coalition
International airport
An international airport is an airport with customs and border control facilities enabling passengers to travel between countries. International airports are larger than domestic airports and feature longer runways and facilities to accommodate the heavier aircraft used for international and intercontinental travel. International airports also host domestic flights. Buildings and management have become sophisticated since the mid 20th century, when international airports began to provide infrastructure for international civilian flights. Detailed technical standards have been developed to ensure safety and common coding systems implemented to provide global consistency; the physical structures that serve millions of individual passengers and flights are among the most complex and interconnected in the world. By the second decade of the 21st century, there were over 1,200 international airports and two billion international passengers along with 50 million metric tonnes of cargo were passing through them annually.
In August 1919, Hounslow Heath Aerodrome, in London, England was the first airport to operate scheduled international commercial services. It was closed and supplanted by Croydon Airport in March 1920. In the United States, Douglas Municipal Airport in Arizona became the first international airport of the Americas in 1928; the precursors to international airports were aerodromes. In the early days of international flights, there was limited infrastructure, "although if engine problems arose there were plenty of places where aircraft could land". Since four-engined land planes were unavailable for over-water operations to international destinations, flying boats became part of the solution. At the far end of the longest international route, on-water landing areas were found in places such as Surabaya and in the open sea off Kupang. In Sydney, Rose Bay, New South Wales, was chosen as the flying boat landing area. International airports sometimes serve military as well as commercial purposes and their viability is affected by technological developments.
Canton Island Airport, for example, in the Phoenix Islands, after serving as a military airport during World War II, was used as a refuelling stop by commercial aircraft such as Qantas which stationed ground crew there in the late 1950s. The advent in the early 1960s of jet aircraft such as the Boeing 707 with the range to fly non-stop between Australia or New Zealand and Hawaii, meant that a mid-Pacific stop was no longer needed and the airport was closed to regular commercial use. Other international airports, such as Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong, have been decommissioned and replaced when they reached capacity or technological advances rendered them inadequate; the construction and operation of an international airport depends on a complicated set of decisions that are affected by technology, politics and geography as well as both local and international law. Designing an airport for domestic traffic or as "non-hub" has, from the beginning, required extensive co-ordination between users and interested parties – architects, engineers and staff all need to be involved.
Airports may be regarded as emblematic of national pride and so the design may be architecturally ambitious. An example is the planned New Mexico City international airport, intended to replace an airport that has reached capacity. Airports can be non-towered, depending on air traffic density and available funds; because of high capacity and busy airspace, many international airports have air traffic control located on site. Some international airports require construction of additional infrastructure outside of the airport, such as at the Hong Kong International Airport, which included the construction of a high-speed railway and automobile expressway to connect the airport to the urban areas of Hong Kong. Construction of the expressway included the construction of two bridges and the Ma Wan viaduct on Ma Wan island to connect the bridges; each bridge carries automobile traffic. International airports have commercial relationships with and provide services to airlines and passengers from around the world.
Many serve as hubs, or places where non-direct flights may land and passengers may switch planes, while others serve direct point-to-point flights. This affects airport design factors, including the number and placement of terminals as well as the flow of passengers and baggage between different areas of the airport. An airport specializing in point-to-point transit can have international and domestic terminals, each in their separate building equipped with separate baggage handling facilities. In a hub airport, however and services are shared. Airport management have to take into account a wide range of factors, among which are the performance of airlines, the technical requirements of aircraft, airport-airline relationships, services for travelling customers and environmental impacts. Technical standards for safety and operating procedures at international airports are set by international agreements; the International Air Transport Association, formed in 1945, is the association of the airline companies.
The International Civil Aviation Organization is a body of the United Nations succeeding earlier international committees going back to 1903. These two organizations served to create regulations over airports which the airports themselves had no authority to debate; this sparked an entire subject of air travel politics. In January 1948, 19 representatives from various US commercial airports met for the first time in New York City to seek resolution to common problems the
Stockholm Skavsta Airport
Stockholm Skavsta Airport, or Nyköping Airport is an international airport near Nyköping, Sweden, 5 kilometres northwest of its urban area and 100 kilometres southwest of Stockholm. It is served by low-cost airlines and cargo operators, is the fifth-largest airport in Sweden, with an ability to handle 2.5 million passengers annually. The airport is located far outside Stockholm Municipality and Stockholm County, but uses'Stockholm' for marketing purposes. Locally the airport is referred to as'Skavsta'. An airbase during World War II, the airport was used as a military airport until 1980, when it was taken out of service; the council of Nyköping Municipality, where the airport is located, decided in 1984 to take over its control and resume its activities. Civilian passenger air traffic started in September 1984 to Arlanda which at the time had all air traffic in Stockholm. In 1998 the Nyköping municipal council put 90% of the capital of the airport up for sale, with the objective of strengthening its commercial management and enabling investments for its expansion.
They acquired this parcel of shares and began the transformation of Skavsta, which has become the second airport of Stockholm and the favoured option for inhabitants who live in the area south of the Swedish capital. The airport has a capacity of 2.5 million passengers per annum and is designed for expansion in the future. It is owned by ADC & HAS, the same company that owns Belfast International Airport, Orlando Sanford International Airport, Daniel Oduber Quirós International Airport, Mariscal Sucre International Airport, Juan Santamaría International Airport; the following airlines offer scheduled services to and from Stockholm Skavsta Airport: Both short and long-term parking facilities are available. The terminal can be reached by foot from all parking areas; the road distance from Stockholm is 108 kilometres. Flygbussarna airport coaches depart hourly, travelling directly between Stockholm Skavsta Airport and the City Terminal in Stockholm. There are airport buses to Södertälje, Linköping, Norrköping, local stops in the southern parts of Stockholm.
Local bus services are available to its railway station. The railway station in Nyköping is 7 kilometres away, it is served by regional trains on the Linköping–Stockholm– route. Local bus or taxi can be used to the airport. On 9 October 1974, Douglas TP-79 79005 of the Swedish Air Force crashed on approach to Nyköping Airport. All 27 people on board survived. List of the largest airports in the Nordic countries Stockholm Arlanda Airport Stockholm Bromma Airport Stockholm Västerås Airport Barkarby Airport Södermanland County Media related to Stockholm-Skavsta Airport at Wikimedia Commons Official website
Arlanda Express
Arlanda Express is an airport rail link connecting Stockholm Central Station with the Stockholm-Arlanda Airport outside Stockholm, Sweden. Operated by A-Train AB, the trip takes 20 minutes and runs four to six times per hour using seven X3 electric multiple units; the services operate over the East Coast Line and the Arlanda Line and call at Stockholm Central Station, Arlanda North Station and Arlanda South Station. The service was used by 2.7 million passengers in 2007 and by 3.3 million passengers in 2012. Planning of the airport link started in the 1980s. In 1993 the Government of Sweden issued a tender for a public–private partnership to build the Arlanda Line; the construction of the line was subsidized with a combination of some state grants and large state loans. The successful tenderer would receive a monopoly on traffic between the airport and Stockholm until 2040; the line and the services were inaugurated on 25 November 1999. The PPP contract has since been criticized for being unclear, uneconomical for the state and leading to a low utilization of the service.
The Arlanda Express connects the city center of Stockholm, at Stockholm Central Station, to the Stockholm-Arlanda Airport. At the airport, the train serves two stations: Arlanda South Station, which serves terminals 2, 3 and 4, Arlanda North Station, which serves terminal 5. From Stockholm to Rosersberg, the train follows the East Coast Line, from there to the airport, the Arlanda Line; the train operates four times per hour. As of August 2016, the standard price for a one-way ticket is SEK 280, although discounts are offered for children, seniors, on special travel days and for return trips under certain conditions; the Arlanda Express is operated by A-Train, a subsidiary of Macquarie Group, which built the Arlanda Line as part of a public–private partnership. The company holds an exclusive concession to operate any train service between Stockholm and the airport. In addition, the company is free to charge other train operators that use the Arlanda Line and stop at Arlanda Central Station; the Arlanda Express is operated by seven four-car X3 electric multiple units.
The units were built by Alstom's Birmingham plant in 1998 and 1999. The train consists of two non-powered center cars; the trains have a maximum power output of 2,240 kilowatts. They weigh 187 tonnes; each car has two doors on each side, the train has seating for 190 passengers. There is a baggage area beside each door, seating for people with a disability and a toilet in the middle of the train; the Arlanda Express' three stations have a special platform height that allows level access to the trains from the platforms. In 2006, the trains were renovated and received new interiors in three different color schemes, green and blue, designed by the former Swedish tennis player Björn Borg's eponymous fashion label. Plans for an airport rail link from the central business district of Stockholm and the airport was launched in the early 1980s; the goal was to reduce road congestion and emissions while allowing Arlanda to keep increasing passenger numbers. The Swedish Rail Administration made a specific plan in the late 1980s which involved the construction of a branch from the existing East Coast Line.
This resulted in a project plan, launched in 1990, which suggested Rosersberg and Odensala as the intersections with the existing line. The political decision to build the line was taken in 1993. Estimates at the time gave a ridership of 5.1 million passengers per year in 2005. The Swedish Rail Administration had proposed that the line was to be built with the government agency as owner and with either SJ or private railway companies as train operators. However, the Cabinet of Carl Bildt wanted private sector involvement in the construction and operation of the line. In 1993, the Government put in place a public tender to operate the line. In 1994, Arlanda Link Consortium was chosen, consisting of the Nordic Construction Company, SIAB, Vattenfall, GEC Alsthom and Mowlem. A-Banan Projekt AB was established as a limited company in 1994 to oversee the project; the consortium established A-Train AB to be the project developer and operate the Arlanda Express until 2040. The legal responsibility for the project was transferred from the consortium to A-Train in 1995.
As part of the agreement, A-Train received from the Swedish Government 850 million Swedish krona in a grant and SEK 1 billion in a loan to help finance the project. The company was allowed to operate a shuttle service from Stockholm C to Arlanda and charge a non-discriminating fee for all other trains using the line. Total investment costs for the project were SEK 6 billion, of which SEK 2 billion was financed through state grants to the Swedish Rail Administration who built the quadruple track along the East Coast Line; the public–private partnership part of the project involved two new tracks at Stockholm C and the Arlanda Line, costing SEK 4.1 billion. Of this, SEK 2.4 billion was financed by the state. In addition, the state held a financial guarantee to Nordea for the X3 trains, should A-Train fail to meets its financial obligations to the bank. A-Train was granted an interest-free deferral on the payment of the fees at Stockholm C and Arlanda, costing the state SEK 90 million. Of A-Train's capital loan for SEK 2.2 billion, SEK 1.8 billion was borrowed from three state-owned financial institutions: the Swedish National Debt Office, the Swedish Export Credit Corporation and the Nordic Investment Bank.
In addition, 20% of the share capital was secured through Vattenfall's equity in the company. The Arlanda Line and the Arlan
Runway
According to the International Civil Aviation Organization, a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a natural surface. In January 1919, aviation pioneer Orville Wright underlined the need for "distinctly marked and prepared landing places, the preparing of the surface of reasonably flat ground an expensive undertaking there would be a continuous expense for the upkeep." Runways are named by a number between 01 and 36, the magnetic azimuth of the runway's heading in decadegrees. This heading differs from true north by the local magnetic declination. A runway numbered 09 points east, runway 18 is south, runway 27 points west and runway 36 points to the north; when taking off from or landing on runway 09, a plane is heading around 90°. A runway can be used in both directions, is named for each direction separately: e.g. "runway 15" in one direction is "runway 33" when used in the other. The two numbers differ by 18.
For clarity in radio communications, each digit in the runway name is pronounced individually: runway one-five, runway three-three, etc.. A leading zero, for example in "runway zero-six" or "runway zero-one-left", is included for all ICAO and some U. S. military airports. However, most U. S. civil aviation airports drop the leading zero. This includes some military airfields such as Cairns Army Airfield; this American anomaly may lead to inconsistencies in conversations between American pilots and controllers in other countries. It is common in a country such as Canada for a controller to clear an incoming American aircraft to, for example, runway 04, the pilot read back the clearance as runway 4. In flight simulation programs those of American origin might apply U. S. usage to airports around the world. For example, runway 05 at Halifax will appear on the program as the single digit 5 rather than 05. If there is more than one runway pointing in the same direction, each runway is identified by appending left and right to the number to identify its position — for example, runways one-five-left, one-five-center, one-five-right.
Runway zero-three-left becomes runway two-one-right. In some countries, regulations mandate that where parallel runways are too close to each other, only one may be used at a time under certain conditions. At large airports with four or more parallel runways some runway identifiers are shifted by 1 to avoid the ambiguity that would result with more than three parallel runways. For example, in Los Angeles, this system results in runways 6L, 6R, 7L, 7R though all four runways are parallel at 69°. At Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, there are five parallel runways, named 17L, 17C, 17R, 18L, 18R, all oriented at a heading of 175.4°. An airport with only three parallel runways may use different runway identifiers, such as when a third parallel runway was opened at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport in 2000 to the south of existing 8R/26L — rather than confusingly becoming the "new" 8R/26L it was instead designated 7R/25L, with the former 8R/26L becoming 7L/25R and 8L/26R becoming 8/26.
Runway designations may change over time because Earth's magnetic lines drift on the surface and the magnetic direction changes. Depending on the airport location and how much drift occurs, it may be necessary to change the runway designation; as runways are designated with headings rounded to the nearest 10°, this affects some runways sooner than others. For example, if the magnetic heading of a runway is 233°, it is designated Runway 23. If the magnetic heading changes downwards by 5 degrees to 228°, the runway remains Runway 23. If on the other hand the original magnetic heading was 226°, the heading decreased by only 2 degrees to 224°, the runway becomes Runway 22; because magnetic drift itself is slow, runway designation changes are uncommon, not welcomed, as they require an accompanying change in aeronautical charts and descriptive documents. When runway designations do change at major airports, it is changed at night as taxiway signs need to be changed and the huge numbers at each end of the runway need to be repainted to the new runway designators.
In July 2009 for example, London Stansted Airport in the United Kingdom changed its runway designations from 05/23 to 04/22 during the night. For fixed-wing aircraft it is advantageous to perform takeoffs and landings into the wind to reduce takeoff or landing roll and reduce the ground speed needed to attain flying speed. Larger airports have several runways in different directions, so that one can be selected, most nearly aligned with the wind. Airports with one runway are constructed to be aligned with the prevailing wind. Compiling a wind rose is in fact one of the preliminary steps taken in constructing airport runways. Note that wind direction is given as the direction the wind is coming from: a plane taking off from runway 09 faces east, into an "east wind" blowing from 090°. Runway dimensions vary from as small as 245 m long and 8 m wide in s
Sweden, Malmö
6.0
Belgium, Brussels
Finland, Helsinki
22.8
Denmark
This article incorporates public domain material from the Air Force Historical Research Agency website http://www.afhra.af.mil/.
Media related to Stockholm-Bromma Airport at Wikimedia Commons
