FAST FACTS
Heavy MetalThe airport has thousands of doors, but there's one that makes the ground tremble when it opens. The entrance to Delta's maintenance hangar is six stories high and 250 feet wide. The four gigantic door panels that cover the opening weigh 37,000 pounds each, for a combined weight of 148,000 pounds. It takes four motors to drive open the doors, which roll back on steel rails, similar to railroad tracks.
Going the Distance
The two underground trains connecting Delta's terminal facilities are capable of 500 round-trips a day with a capacity of 850 passengers per trip. This equates to a potential passenger capacity of 426,000 per day or more than half the U.S. population each year. The total mileage to date is approaching 1.5 million round-trips, for a total of 31 trips around the Earth's equator.
What Does CVG Stand For?
CVG stands for "Covington," that being the nearest city of any size when the airport opened in 1947. We, however, like to think of it as an abbreviation for "Cincinnati Very Good." That's a slogan we picked up from Neil Armstrong when he was on our board of directors in the 1970s. (Those, of course, were the second-greatest words Neil ever spoke. The others being something about "One small step for man…")
Perfect Timing
The overhead clocks in the airport terminals are set each day via a computer link with the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado. There, the government maintains an atomic clock as the official standard of time. The atomic clock measures seconds through the vibration of atoms, making it accurate to within millionths of a second. The airport doesn't have to worry about being that accurate. But once each hour the terminal clocks adjust themselves, making sure travelers get up-to-the-minute accuracy.
Paperwork
The airport board each year considers many important items. Not the least of these is the annual contract to supply toilet paper. This is no small matter, indeed. A year's supply costs the airport more than $70,000. How much does that buy? How about 316,800 rolls? Stretched in a line, the toilet paper would extend nearly 59 million feet. That's more than 11,000 miles, or nearly four times the distance across the United States.
Serious Power
The power to run the airport comes from three massive electrical feeds, each capable of delivering up to 10 megawatts at 12,500 volts. (That's up to 10 million watts each!) The largest single users of electricity are the two underground trains that carry passengers between Delta's terminal and concourses. Together they draw 2,400 amps with each start-up. (The typical home appliance draws two to six amps.)
Delta Hangar at CVG
Underground Train
Terminal Dedication
