THIS IS THE TEST SITE OF EUROBRICKS!
Search the Community
Showing results for tags 'atr-42'.
Found 1 result
-
Dan Journman is a world famous traveling freelance LEGO reporter, specialized in engineering and technology. If Eurobricks agrees, I will post here excerpts from Dan's travel stories. His accounts have typically 4 parts: A description of his experiences, historical background from local sources, technical details, and his personal final comments. Some years ago, Dan visited a distant small mining facility with innovative water powered generators. But that's another story. This topic is from an intermediate stop during his journey, at a small regional airport. Dan's Story The morning flight from the SW capital was uneventful. It lasted a while as it was on the edge of the range for our small airplane, but it was still rather pleasant. The old but well maintained and clean aircraft was an LTR-24, seating 25 passengers, 1 cabin and 2 flight deck crew members. The three-bladed propellers revealed that this particular airplane was a quite old version of the popular regional turboprop; though with upgraded avionics and FMC. The LTR-24 is the smallest of the LTR range that has included the LTR-32, LTR-40 and SLTR-44. Based on the real world Aerospatiale/Alenia ATR series, passengers board through a rear located door and cargo is loaded through the large cargo door in the front, behind flightdeck. The first thing I noticed when we landed was the size of the airport building. I was surprised to find that there were only two daily flights connecting with bigger towns, in addition to some local flights to nearby sites, including the mining town I was about to visit. As I had some time to spare before my next flight, I had the opportunity to talk with the airport manager who was very helpful in providing information and he even gave me some pictures taken by drone, showing a similar aircraft (LTR-24) parked at the apron. The manager explained me that the airport building was an ambitious attempt to establish a secondary regional hub in the NW territory, to serve the few small northernmost towns of the region. Pressure from local politicians and overoptimistic hopes for rapid development of the region dictated the construction of a relatively large terminal with 5 gates, including 2 air-bridges. The two-level building has the capacity to serve several simultaneous flights. However, by the time the terminal was inaugurated and for the years to come, the passenger volume remained low and the largest airplane ever connecting the city to the main NW hub was the humble LTR-24 with a twice-daily service frequency. Two or three smaller SWTL-16 based at the airport connect the nearby towns. The irony in the pictures is obvious; the air-bridges are out of service since the LTR-24 (as well as the smaller commuter planes) cannot use an air-bridge and passengers board from one of the 3 ground gates. In fact, only a fraction of the terminal facilities has ever been used. Local press has often cited the airport expansion as a scandal, perhaps not without a reason. Some technical details about the Terminal The airport terminal of this small hub has a departures hall with check-in kiosks and desks, baggage drop-off and ticketing services. In the secured area, the main hall (mostly empty space) has only a small cafe selling also some souvenirs. Passengers board the planes through two air-bridges or ground level gates. A dedicated hallway allows any gate to be used for arrivals as well. The arrivals hall has two baggage claim belts and a car rental desk. The footprint area of the terminal is 6912 square studs (0.44 square meters, 4.8 square feet) and the volume is approximately 138000 cubic studs (0.08 cubic meters, 2.8 cubic feet). Final Comment from Dan A typical waste of taxpayers money. Spend too much, build too big, leave things unfinished and ugly looking. Low quality construction with limited use and functionality. Photo 1 (from drone) Baggage loading and passengers boarding. Loaders are placing the baggage into the forward cargo hold. Photo 2 (from drone) Passengers exiting the terminal building through ground gate B2. We used the exact same gate. Photo 3 (from drone) Another view of the flight preparations. Notice the First Officer standing next to the number 1 engine while doing the pre-flight check. Photo 4 Upgraded flightdeck of the old LTR-24 commuter turboprop; photo taken from behind First Officer's seat.
