Cool Stuff at WotsKool!

When collecting my car from an airport parking lot returning from a recent business trip I stumbled upon a suitcase, seemingly left behind in the airport car park.

It was approaching 10:00 p.m. when I disembarked from the shuttle bus that had ferried me to the location of my parked car. The car park office was deserted and a notice simply provided an emergency number to call. So when I came across the suitcase I have to admit I was strongly inclined to just ignore it and head off on my homeward journey.

But my conscience got the better of me as I thought about the poor, unfortunate holidaymakers who would discover that they’d lost a whole suitcase when they unpacked their car.

Then again, it may have contained a bomb! But why any terrorist would want to blow up a bunch of unoccupied, parked cars escaped me. So I did the responsible thing and called the emergency number provided by the car park office.

Sure enough, a couple of security guys quickly came along and, without much fuss or close examination, tossed the lost suitcase into the back of their van.

Safe and secure air travel is definitely very cool. Given the increasing number of aircraft criss-crossing our skies it is a wonder that we don’t have more mid-air collisions.

Investigations are currently taking place into a near miss that took place between a military aircraft and Aberdeen bound civil aircraft at around 11,000 feet on April 10th. The near miss occurred just 10 miles northwest of Norwich between a scheduled BMI regional E135 flight and a military aircraft.

The Ministry of Defence has yet to release details of the incident.

The air proximity report is now being considered by the UK Airprox Board who will consider the causes of the incident and the level of risk that it presented.

In 2006 a total of 74 air proximity reports were submitted involving commercial aircraft and 92% of these were assess as having no risk of collision.

It is a little known fact that Aberdeen airport, just 7 miles northwest of Aberdeen city centre, is the world’s largest commercial heliport with over 37000 helicopter movements each year. How cool is that?

The reason is simply oil. Aberdeen airport is well established as the main link to the north sea oil fields, playing a vital part in Scotland’s oil industry.

Aberdeen airport is relatively young. It only came into being in 1934 after a piece of land in Dyce was acquired for use as an aerodrome. In 1939 it was taken over by the RAF and then experienced some modest expansion in the post war years.

It wasn’t until 1967 that the first offshore helicopter flight took place. There are now three helicopter landing areas and around 3,000 employees. The airport is experiencing continued growth in the number of passengers and the main runway is primed for extension to accommodate larger aircraft this year (2008).

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