Why 'Ramp'

[Cron]

The term 'Ramp' appears much in my readings of aviation e.g. 'maximum certified taxi (ramp) mass'. Clearly the term 'Ramp' describes part of an airfield but I would imagine that rarely is this area inclined as the term suggests.

Could anyone tell me how this term came to be used? Thank you.

[helinone]

May be from the seaplane era?

[CyclicRick]

What about apron? Can't see a housewife/husband wearing one of those, all the aircraft would fall off and make a mess in the kitchen ;)

[autoranger]

Probably people confusing what should be on the apron - a ramp (a movable staircase that passengers use to board or leave an aircraft) - and an apron can also be n 1: a garment of cloth or leather or plastic that is tied about the waist and worn to protect your clothing 2: (golf) the part of the fairway leading onto the green 3: the part of a modern theater stage between the curtain and the orchestra (i.e., in front of the curtain) [syn: proscenium, forestage] and of course 4: a paved surface where aircraft stand while not being used!

Practise autorotation go!:cool: :cool: :cool:

[Milt]

There are a plethora of carry over odd names now applied to aviation with 'ramp' mixed in with a few of the following that have obscure derivations.

tarmac
joy stick
wind screen
taxi
dutch roll
immelman
pitot
yoke
captain
cabin
gear
corkscrew
eighths of cloud cover

and then some surviving alternatives such as

cockpit/flight deck
prop/airscrew
after burner/reheat
pitch control/RPM control
port and starboard/left and right

and a bad one now emerging such as "crashing the airspace". ATCOs desist.

[170']

Hey Cron..

Strangely enough! The ramp area used to be full of parked ramps!

Ramps with stairs, ramps with early type conveyor belts, all kinds of ramps and the like were necessary in pre-jetway days.

For an example a Super Connie, CL44, Early 720 or 707 would be parked at the maintenance stand or parking stand and after maintenance etc, was towed or taxied to the ramp area, where the brightly colored company ramps were stored. For pax embarcation and freight loading

Most of the Ramps disappeared, but the name stayed!

170

[Blind]

Milt

What is odd about the word tarmac? Some Scottish chap called Mcadam developed paving of roads and when this later involved tar it became tarmacadam then tarmac.

Wind screen is pretty easy too but not so sure about a joystick!

Simple!!!

[Matthew Parsons]

It came from the verb ramp, meaning something like "creep forward", to imply its an area where we move carefully to stage for take off.

[Cron]

That's a very interesting explanation MP and very different from the others. (But I reckon they were all either humorous or contributory or helpful).

Many thanks.

Cron.

[Gomer Pylot]

The ramp weight is exactly that, the maximum permissible weight on the ramp, before takeoff. It often needs to be less for takeoff, and the difference allows for start, runup, taxi, etc so that the pilot can start the takeoff at the maximum permissible takeoff weight. This generally applies to larger aircraft, but the legal terms still apply to all aircraft. The maximum ramp weight may or may not be different from the maximum takeoff weight, and the maximum landing weight may or may not be less than the maximlum takeoff weight.

As to why the ramp is so named, I have no idea. Why is a tree called a tree? Everything needs a name, no?

[RobboRider]

>>Wind screen is pretty easy too but not so sure about a joystick!<<

The following URL makes interesting reading about the possible source of the "Joy Stick"

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-joy1.htm