STEPHENVILLE — The Stephenville Airport Corporation has a proper piece of equipment to carry out de-icing at the airport that will enable them to work on any type of plane.
Graham Armour, corporation chairman, said the Ford 8000 truck equipped with a 48-foot Landoll boom was recently purchased from Global GSE (Ground Services Equipment) in Indianapolis.
It was one of 350 that were built for the United States Air Force, and this particular unit was last used in Saudi Arabia, where it was only used for washing down planes.
“It’s an excellent unit with only 2,900 miles on the vehicle itself and just 1,544 hours on the auxiliary engine that powers the pumps,” he said. “It’s great to have a piece of equipment actually made for the purpose its being used.”
Armour said the new equipment will be much less expensive to operate than its current truck since it’s equipped with diesel-fired heaters for warming the de-icing fluid; whereas the old unit required electricity for that purpose, which was costly.
Garry Noel, airport manager, said the boom on the vehicle is standard height for these type of vehicles, and as far as he is aware it’s the same as any other in Atlantic Canada. He said the machine operates with a distribution of 100 gallons a minute.
Pleased with the acquisition, Armour said with the right equipment and people at the airport, it’s a real team effort that will make Stephenville airport work.
Hey WESTCOASTER, Your nails must be running low. LOL. You certainly jump at the chance to make something positive for YJT fall to the negative side. As I said in the past, no thanks I fly YJT. No need for me to fly YDF. Is your fear that if YJT grows its service, it will hurt the YDF? I don't think this is the case at all. I think YDF would do fine, so please don't worry about YJT taking over air service for Western NL, your government would never let that happen, trust me. Stephenville only wishes for a little piece of the pie, and this is a way of getting it. FLY YJT!