A is for Alphabetical

Ok, so I haven't really posted much on here for over two months. This blog is on the verge of drying up and blowing away.

Yes, I have the birth of my daughter to excuse me for my lack of time, but things are slowly gravitating back towards some sort of normalcy and I'd like to try and keep this thing going. Its good fun and I like to write. Writing is a brain-engaged activity that makes me feel like I'm doing something...as opposed to playing video games or trying to study for the INRAT exam in fifteen minute chunks.

I got a great idea from Flygirl over at Always Looking Above, to do a series of posts alphabetically...A is for blah blah, B is for....you get the idea. She's a pilot-in-training nee flight attendant and her blog is a good read, I recommend it. Hopefully if I plug her and she sees a couple people clicking through from my link, she won't be too sore at me for totally ripping off her idea.

So, since my 350 hours doesn't really qualify me to post an alphabetical series on flying... I'm going to focus on my current job, Fuel Guy, Ramp Rat, Line Crew...but you can just call me Maverick.

Okay, so here's what I came up with for A;

A is for Asphalt.

Can't have a ramp without a whole lot of Asphalt. On our ramp we have mostly asphalt, coated with a sealant material to keep fuel from penetrating into it. We also have a couple of " Heavy Pads ", areas of the ramp made from re-inforced concrete to support larger aircraft. Considering we routinely handle aircraft in the 200,000 Lbs range, these are pretty important. All of that weight is concentrated in a few dozen square feet that the landing gear impress upon the ground. The asphalt can take the load, but not on a regular basis. Eventually, you'd end up with some serious dips, ruts, holes or worse.



This is a C-130, sitting on a Heavy Pad, the darker ground is the softer asphalt.



This landing gear does a little bit better in the weight-per-square-foot category. Bonus points if you can tell me what type of aircraft this is :)


A is for Arrivals



This is our Flight Tracker software. I've mentioned this before, but its what we use to track aircraft in flight. More and more aircraft though, are requesting to have their flight information hidden from view. Almost all are corporate aircraft and it just isn't as glamourous to be rich and successfull in these times I guess. Especially after the big fiasco with the automakers showing up in Washington DC in their corporate jets to beg for government handout money... Now every time a company announces lay-offs, all it takes is someone to run a story about the " fat-cats " in the jets while Joe Lunchbox takes a pink slip, to sell a few papers. This bothers me, but I'm thankful that it only bothers me because its lazy, reactionary journalism, not the jet-riding-around part.




A is for Aerodrome

I love how in Canada we call it an aerodrome. I can't help it, all I see is old WWI bi-planes and flying scarves.