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May 2015 - Volume 7 - Issue 5

State of DIA Will Be the Evening of June 23

This year’s State of DIA, "Tails and Tales," is on the horizon. Join airport CEO Kim Day at dinner on Tuesday June 23 at the Seawell Grand Ballroom at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. The evening event will begin at 6 p.m. To register, go online: StateofDIA

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Celebrating 20 Years with a Chance to Win $20K

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“How do you want your winnings? In twenties or fifties?”

You may be asked that question if you win a new Colorado Lottery game.

In celebration of DIA’s 20th anniversary this year, the airport partnered with the Colorado Lottery to launch a DIA-themed scratch ticket: “Destination Dollars.”

The new scratch game features four tickets with images of DIA’s Jeppesen Terminal, each costing $2. The game’s top prize is $20,000.

The tickets are now available at all Colorado Lottery ticket sale locations throughout the state, including a Colorado Lottery kiosk located on Jeppesen Terminal Level 5, in the northwest corner of the atrium (near the north passenger screening checkpoint).

The game also has a second-chance drawing that offers the possibility of winning two roundtrip airline tickets on United Airlines or United Express to anywhere in the continental United States, , Mexico, or the Caribbean. Read the drawing details and enter non-winning tickets for a second-chance prize on the Lottery website, www.coloradolottery.com, or via the Colorado Lottery mobile app.

Bloomberg: ‘Denver Airport Beats Peers as Its City Ranks near Top for Growth’

Denver International Airport has helped transform Denver over the last 20 years and is financially outperforming many U.S. airports, according to a news article on the Bloomberg Business website. The Bloomberg report, released May 6, found that DEN posted lower borrowing costs than most of its peers last year while generating higher returns, although it operates in a state with the 22nd-largest population. The report also highlights how DEN has become the primary economic engine for Colorado, and discusses the airport’s room to grow and the ongoing Hotel and Transit Center project.

Read the entire article here.

DIA Breaks Record for Busiest Day in Customs

Denver International Airport saw 4,714 international passengers go through U.S. http://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/CODIA/bulletins/1069430[6/9/2015 12:48:17 PM] WingTips May 2015

Customs on March 28, 2015, making it DIA’s busiest international arrival day recorded to date (not counting passengers who were pre-cleared in Canada).

March brought a 7-percent increase in international passenger traffic through the facility. United Airlines, Volaris and Southwest Airlines had strong overall international increases, and British Airways began using a Boeing 747-400 for its Denver-to- service in lieu of the B-777-200. Overall international passenger traffic, however, declined nearly 8 percent, from 229,860 in March 2014 to 212,419 in March 2015.

Total March passenger traffic declined by 11,000 passengers out of 4.53 million, a 0.2-percent decrease from the same month last year.

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Tour the Panama Canal

The adventurer and author Richard Halliburton toured the Panama Canal in 1928 by swimming its length. He was charged a passage fee of 36 cents.

His method of experiencing the 50-mile (80 kilometer) waterway might still be possible. But, most people prefer to do it by boat.

The 50-mile-long Panama Canal sees boat and ship traffic of every size.

Getting to the canal is easy, now that United Airlines has a nonstop flight between Denver and Panama City. Flight 1697 from Denver, leaving at 12:50 p.m., is available five times a week May through November and daily from December through April.

By flying to Panama this year, you will still be able to see canal expansion under construction. The canal navigation channels are being widened and deepened, and the project is adding two more sets of locks to the current total of three. The Panama Canal Authority announced April 28 the installation of the 16th and final lock gate. So, your chance to see the mammoth construction project may last only up to December this year—the earliest target date for completion.

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The Miraflores Locks--one of three original sets of locks that operate on the Panama Canal

Enjoying the canal’s current path by taking a daylong cruise may be one of the more interesting boat trips you will ever take. For one thing, you’ll start in the Pacific Ocean and end up in the Atlantic. From Panama City, along the way, you will see the draining and flooding of three lock sets as your cruiser changes elevation so that it can continue its voyage. You’ll pass through the Gaillard Cut, which bisects the Continental Divide, and into Lago Gatún, a huge lake created by the Gatún Dam across the Chagres River. The trip will end on the Atlantic side, and from there a bus will carry you back to Panama City.

Giant lock gates are brought by barge to the construction site for new Panama Canal locks.

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Two new sets of locks are part of the canal expansion program, expected to be completed late 2015 or first quarter 2016.

During your canal passage you probably will see giant ocean liners and container ships—maybe even a military boat, submarine or an oil tanker. You may glimpse tropical creatures as you enjoy the landscape itself.

Many touring companies offer Panama Canal day trips (you’ll spend 10 hours), but half-day excursions also are available. If you don’t want to traverse the canal, you can drive from Panama City to the canal museum at the Miraflores Locks. From Colón, on the Atlantic side of Panama, it’s easy to visit the Gatún Locks, the Gatún Dam and the Atlantic Observation Center, which has covered decks for viewing the lake and especially the canal’s new construction. A theater shows video presentations in English, and you’ll find a café and, of course, a gift shop. Lonely Planet says that visitors there can walk a short rainforest trail for up-close and not-so-personal encounters with sloths and monkeys.

Other canal options are kayaking or fishing or staying on a three-story houseboat lodge moored on the lake. Tours of indigenous villages close to the canal or a boat ride to and hike around Barro Colorado Island are available. Barrao Colorado is surrounded by Lago Gatún and is the location for the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute research station.

Information about canal activities can be found at the official website of the Republic of Panama: www.visitpanama.com or at travel websites like Lonely Planet’s: www.lonelyplanet.com.

Follow this link for more information about the canal expansion.

Great Men and Women of Aviation

Thomas Sopwith

Spectators lining the shores of Staten Island and Bay Ridge in 1911 cheered when they spied a plane emerging from the mist.

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The aircraft was heading out to sea, trying to catch the new White Star Line ship Olympic, which was leaving New York Harbor for the first time. The Olympic, Titanic’s sister ship, passed the Narrows and sailed toward the Atlantic.

The spectators had gathered to see the Olympic and also to watch the , piloted by Englishman Thomas Octave Murdoch Sopwith, fly above the ship as a salute to the liner’s maiden return voyage to England.

Seeing the world’s largest passenger ship was a rare, exciting event. But, so, too, was seeing a plane. The date was June 1911, and sightings of aircraft were infrequent. Aviation —a fledgling endeavor—was as thrilling then as seeing today’s images of the universe’s remotest galaxies.

“We were about 1,000 feet up,” Sopwith told the New York Times. “I could feel the warm air rising from the funnels of the liner, and it bothered me just a bit—not enough to cause me real concern, however.

“I was particularly glad to accomplish the flight, for I had been prevented from greeting the Olympic on her arrival and I did not want her first trip to America to be completed without extending my congratulations to her Captain.”

Sopwith—an early aviator—taught himself to fly in 1910 when he was 22, and he soon set records in England, winning the Baron de Forrest prize for the longest flight from England to Europe, reaching Tirlemont, Belgium, in three hours from Eastchurch.

He toured the United States, performing at aviation meets, where the public could watch pioneer aviators try new flying stunts, or set distance, altitude or time records—often in newly designed aircraft. Sopwith was at a meet sponsored by the Aero Club of New York on Long Island when he rendezvoused with the Olympic. While at this meet, he also raced an electric train (losing), flew to Theodore Roosevelt’s house in Oyster Bay, and took President Taft’s brother up for a flight.

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Thomas Sopwith’s Camel F-1 aircraft was a superior fighter plane for the Allies during the air war in 1917 until the Germans introduced the Fokker D-VII. U.S. Air Force photo, National Museum of the United States Air Force, Dayton, Ohio. Below: Thomas Sopwith’s company produced 18,000 aircraft for Great Britain during , including the . Photo from the Sopwith’s real fame, however, came from his military airplane designs during the world wars and after. In World War I his company built 18,000 aircraft for the British. His most famous model, the Sopwith Camel, helped the Allies achieve air superiority against the Germans in 1917 until the latter’s Fokker D-VII began to dominate in 1918. It was the Sopwith Camel that pursued the German ace “Red Baron” to his death (Snoopy, in the Peanuts cartoons flew a Sopwith Camel). Sopwith then designed an even better plane: the , which, along with the French SPAD fighter, allowed the Allies to retake control of the Great War skies until the Armistice.

In 1935 he became board chairman of the Group when his company merged with other manufacturers. Sopwith anticipated the next war and produced on his own and without a government contract 1,000 Hawker Hurricanes, which became a Royal Air Force fighter plane. The Hurricane helped England defeat the German Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain in 1940. After World War II, Sopwith’s company developed the Hawker Harrier (known as the “Jump Jet”)—the first aircraft that could take off and land vertically.

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After the Germans began flying the Fokker D-VII, which outperformed the Sopwith Camel fighter, Thomas Sopwith’s company introduced the Snipe, which once again allowed the Allies to achieve air supremacy, during the final year of World War I. This Snipe is on display in the Legend, Memory and the Great War in the Air Gallery, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution. Image by Eric Long. Image number: 98-15919

Always a sportsman (car and yacht racing), Sopwith entered two America’s Cup sailing competitions in the 1930s (losing both races)

He led a bold and adventurous life, creating a dominant aircraft design and manufacturing firm that eventually became nationalized and part of British Aerospace (its successor is BAE Systems).

When Sopwith died at age 101 in 1989, the U.K. newspaper Evening Standard ran this headline: “The genius of flight is dead.”

To see a feature video about the Sopwith Camel, and to see it fly in formation with a World War II British Spitfire fighter, follow this link to YouTube: Sopwith Camel (the flying begins about 4 minutes into the video).

Thomas Octave Murdoch Sopwith portrait courtesy of the Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-93361. Photographer: Marceau. photo date: 1911.

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May the Fourth (Be with Infatuation with Model You) Airplanes

On its website, MSN recently posted an Denver International Airport was attuned to Associated Press article written by Scott “the force” on May 4, Star Wars Day. To Mayerowitz, titled: “Airline world’s tiny commemorate the occasion, VIP Darth secret: infatuation with model airplanes.” Vader was on site, and the large (under construction) “Death Star” was seen in the Read the article to find out more: Model airspace above DIA. More photographs are Planes. posted at DIA's Facebook page.

Experience a Simulator Flight

DIA's on Instagram Have you been inside a commercial aircraft Check out the airport’s new page on simulator? Watch this video taken during a Instagram (@denairport), which has great Boeing 787 simulator flight. photos of DIA’s terminal, airfield, aircraft and many other subjects. Follow our page on your smartphone. Submit your photos to us by tagging @denairport or by using hashtag flydenver (#flydenver). Here’s the link: www.instagram.com/denairport. Also you can download Instagram's mobile app.

Air Service News

United Adds Twice-Weekly Flights Between Denver and North Bend, Ore.

On Sundays and Wednesdays from July 1 to October 18, United Airlines will fly nonstop between DEN and Southwest Oregon Regional Airport (OTH), in North Bend, Ore.

The town of North Bend is on Coos Bay and north of the town of Coos Bay. The bay is located on Oregon’s southern coast (or “Oregon’s Adventure Coast”). North Bend, is near six state parks, wildlife refuges, beaches, and lighthouses and is close to Bandon Dunes

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Golf Resort, located on the Pacific Ocean.

Frontier Airlines Announces New Denver to Raleigh-Durham Route

Starting June 11, Frontier Airlines will begin nonstop service between Denver and Raleigh- Durham International Airport (RDU) in North Carolina.

Southwest Increasing Denver Flights in June

Southwest is increasing its service from Denver, beginning June 7, 2015. A new destination is Albany, N.Y. (ALB), which will operate once a week on Saturdays. The other new flights will be between Denver and Austin, Baltimore, Boston, Columbus, Houston (Hobby), Minneapolis-St. Paul, Orlando, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Portland, Raleigh-Durham, and Seattle.

Southwest Airlines’ added nonstop flights bring the airline’s current Denver market volume of 174 daily flights up to 185.

Southwest Applies for DEN-Puerto Vallarta

Southwest Airlines filed an application with the U.S. Department of Transportation to provide daily, nonstop service between Denver and Puerto Vallarta’s (PVR), beginning in November 2015, subject to approvals from governmental agencies.

This will be Southwest’s third Mexico destination from DEN. The carrier also flies to San José del Cabo and Cancún.

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