Diary 4

Kia ora tātou

It was a sunny and warm day here in Christchurch today. Looking west you could see the foothills of the Southern Alps capped with snow – living proof that Christchurch Airport really is the Gateway to the South Island.

Final field trip audioconferences

Once again your day began with two audioconferences. Your expert on the first one was Cam Kenyon from Airport Fire Services who answered questions from Limehills School. You could tell from Cam’s answers that your visit to the airport fire station later on in the day was going to be a good one!

The last audioconference for the week saw Weston School put questions to Ford Robertson and Lenore Stevenson. As you probably know by now these audioconferences can be listened to again in Audioconference Recordings.

Property Development

CIAL own the airport terminal and airfields, but also a whopping extra 800 hectares of land!  So this morning you got to see how some of this land is being turned into commercial and retail property. Dean Christie took you to the site of an old gravel pit near one end of the main runway that is currently being worked on. This area will be known as Mustang Park. The ambassadors thought this was pretty cool, especially when they got a ride in a loader bucket! You might have also thought it was cool, especially when you got a close-up view of a big Boeing 777 200 taking off!

You then met Laurie Corbett who showed you some land, known as Dakota Park, which had already been developed. It was a good way of showing you an example of what Mustang Park will look like when it is finished. There is also going to be an area for retail businesses called Spitfire Square.

Notice anything interesting about the names of these places? See if you can find out what they have in common.

Stormwater Management

Managing stormwater is really important at Christchurch Airport. All of the airport’s drinking water comes from two deep wells and there are a number of other bores used for heating and cooling the terminal. Ewen Robertson the Environmental Manager showed you how different parts of the airport have different ways of looking after stormwater. It was good to see that testing is done on the groundwater, and that there are things called interceptors which take fuel and oil out of the stormwater before it soaks back into the ground. Watch the video to get a better idea of how all this works.

Airport Fire Service

After lunch, you were lucky enough to visit the Airport Fire Service. But even luckier was that you got to have a ride in one of the big fire trucks – out onto the airfield and down the main runway! Cam Kenyon put the sirens and lights on and even let you fire the water cannons! The ambassadors certainly enjoyed themselves. This is a must see video.

Airport Fire Service is more than just being there to put out fires. They are involved in all aspects of safety and rescue and are an essential part of any big airport. Also very important at the airport is wildlife control. Airplane bird strike is a serious threat which if happens can cost millions of dollars, not to mention put people’s lives at risk. Wildlife Officer Ian Stothers talked to you more about this. And then he showed you some of the ways they scare away the birds. It was a bit like playing with fireworks. Watch the video to see things shooting up into the air and going bang!

Also really interesting is that all the grass out on the airfield has been especially developed by scientists to put off birds. If they eat the grass seed it makes them sick, so this is another way to keep bird numbers down at the airport and lower the risk of aircraft damage and to keep passengers safe.

It was a lot of fun standing out on the airfield and watching planes take off and land. When you get up close to them like that, it makes you wonder how such big machines ever even get off the ground!

This week has been a truly fascinating look at how airports are run. There is so much more going on behind the scenes than you probably first thought. I’m sure you will never look at an airport the same again!

It has been awesome having you with me on the Christchurch Airport field trip this week, and I hope you can join me and Egbert on another field trip soon.

Ka kite anō,

Andrew