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Unique planes at KCIA

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<<Sounds of airplane taking off>>

Narrator Says:

On any given day at King County International Airport, especially sunny ones when activity at the airport is up, a rich variety of airplanes will take off and land.

They range widely in size from the runts like this Diamond DA-20 used mainly for short flights and training, to the mammoth like the Russian Antonov, or Boeing's LCF, which stands for Large Cargo Freighter.

We’ll start with the Antonov, and one of its admirer, David Decoteau is airport operations coordinator at KCIA. As an admitted plane junkie, he says it was a little awe-inspiring to see this giant craft after only reading about it or seeing it in pictures.

KCIA Airport Operations Coordinator David Decoteau Says:

It's pretty crazy, the aircraft is actually the second-largest aircraft in the world, the only thing that's larger than it is the larger edition, of the Antonov, and it's very rare that that aircraft comes into many airports in the united states.

So we're pretty fortunate here that we get to see it, and just the diversity that we have here, the best way to put the size into comparison, is that we've had cessnas that taxi along here, and then you have a Cessna and then an Antonov, and you could fit 20 Cessnas inside the thing.

Narrator Says:

The Antonov that lands at KCIA is the AN-124. It’s about 230 feet long and about 240 wide, and its flights to Seattle serve the purpose of carrying Boeing plane parts. The load’s can be massive as the plane is capable of carrying about 330,000 pounds of cargo.

The Antonov is the largest aircraft ever mass-produced, and you could say another one of the titans that flies in is green with envy. This is a plane Boeing calls the ‘Dreamlifter’. That’s a reference to the fact that the LCF as it’s commonly referred to carries the parts for Boeing's new ‘Dreamliner’.

The parts come in from many foreign cities where they’re made.  David says the LCF get its fair share of inquiries from curious on-lookers too.

KCIA Airport Operations Coordinator David Decoteau Says

Especially the way it looks, it's a real different looking aircraft, it's not painted the one we have here, it's a green color, so it looks kind of different, and there's nothing like it, so it's interesting. Yeah they can put fuselages inside it, it's got a real wide body, the tail portion actually opens up so you can load things from the back or the front of the aircraft.

Narrator Says:

But not all the interesting planes at KCIA are so because of their immense size. A ways down the runway at Galvin flying sit a few of the Diamond aircraft. This fleet also gets quite a bit of attention due to the plane’s unique-looking design.

Nick Frisch of Galvin flying explains.

Galvin Flight Department Manager Nick Frisch Says:

People have seen the older technology airplanes for years and often times when they come out to the flight line, this is one of the first airplanes they see, and they go 'wow, what's that?', 'I want to fly in that', 'when I learn to fly, that's the airplane I want to fly', we get that response a lot.

It's the kind of airplane where you'd wake up on a Saturday morning and say 'gee, I really want to go flying, what should I fly?', and this airplane is just a hoot to fly, it's fun to get out and be airborne in a Diamond DA-20, way more fun than some of the trainers of yesteryear that do the job of getting you airborne but simply aren't as much fun, this is like a little sports car, so if you were to think of it as a Mazda Miata, that would be pretty close in terms of the handling capabilities, and the experience of flying it in terms of the fun.

Narrator Says:

The Diamond planes Galvin flies are also somewhat groundbreaking in that they’re a little bit easier on the environment.

Galvin Flight Department Manager Nick Frisch Says:

For years the industry has been looking at ways to find engine technologies that didn't require the use of lead in the fuels, most airplanes still use lead and aviation gasoline, but the diesel creates a way to depart from those technologies.

The diesel engine uses diesel fuel or in the case of an airport jet fuel, and as a result of that the airplane burns a cleaner fuel, and it burns a whole lot less of it, so in a typical training mission, in an older technology airplane like a Piper Seminole, which we have, we've been burning almost 18 gallons an hour of fuel in training missions.

With the twin star we're burning about seven and a half gallons an hour to fulfill the same missions, so we're very excited about the fact that the airplane uses significantly less fuel, it's an environmentally cleaner fuel, and it's also more readily-available worldwide, so the airplane has much more of an international appeal, than the airplanes that burn aviation gasoline do.

Narrator Says:

So whether it’s the big boys like the Antonov and Boeing LCF or the so-called Mazda Miata of flying like the Diamond DA-20, there are always plenty of interesting planes in the skies at King County International Aiport.

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Updated:  June 19, 2008

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