Day 2

Today, was airport familiarization day. I think that this has been one of the more informative classes I have taken in a while. At least at a fun, trivia level. I have always wanted to know what the signs meant when I have been flying for the past god knows how many years. Today I learned not only the signs but also what the lights mean. It was cool to get a deeper understanding of airport operations at a "normal" airport as well. The Pegasus runway and the Willy Field Iceway, aren't typical airfields. I defiantly wish I was able to take this class last year, because now I understand ARFF much better.
After lunch we took a tour of DIA airport. They even got us a bus to tour around in. I think this was my favorite part of the day because I got to see my favorite plane, the boeing 777. I have had a wicked interest in this plane when I first saw it made 10 years ago when I visited my brother in Seattle. As you can see the plane is huge! This plane has a range of over 8,000 miles and can fly at a speed of 555 miles per hour. Not bad if you ask me. We were able to crawl around it and explore it a great deal. This was neat because it gave everyone a better understanding of what the inside of this type of plane looks like. Being able to have full acess to this plane was really cool. I went around the cockpit, business class, first class, cargo, coach, and even the underbelly of the cockpit where all the electronic are located. It was really cool.

After that tour, we stopped by two of the firehouses on the DIA grounds. DIA is approx. 52 or so square miles large. There are a total of 4 firehouses, each located very strategically. This is so that they can reach the middle of any of the 6 runways within 3 minutes, for the first due engine. And within 4 minutes for the 2nd due truck. This is a very interesting concept, that I never really thought of. Due to this FAA regulation, it is very tough for big airport to be full functional without a big ARFF Department to back them up. It forces the airports into needing ARFF and more or less securing ARFF's future and funding. We then took a tour of where the plane crash was last year at DIA, surprisingly no one died from that accident. And then we went back to the classroom and watched some of the responses that they do here. They have mounted camera's on all the rigs as well as heat cameras to record incidents. Watching and actually walked through these calls really showed me how effective ARFF can be, when it is well executed.

DIA hopes to have 12 full functional runways, and they are designed to be one of the most fuel efficient airports in America right now. I hope you all found this as fascinating as I did. I did my best to explain all of this. Anyway, I'm off to Dinner now. Talk to you all later!