Posted 6 years ago
TheAirIsBe…
(1 item)
This jet way control panel was installed on the jet bridge at gate E63 at General Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1972. After the bankruptcy of Eastern Airlines in 1991, Continental Airlines took over the lease of Gate E63 until 2012 when Expressjet who operated the Continental Express Flights lost their bid to handle the United Express Airlines operations after the merger in 2010. United Airlines fully moved from C Concourse to E Concourse; Gates (E61, E62, E63) in April 2013. E63 was in daily use until United moved back over to C Concourse in 2016. Milwaukee County who owns and operates the airport closed E 60 year old concourse in 2017. The concourse will be transformed into a new International Flights Concourse. The first parts of the concourse to be removed were the jet ways in April 2018. Many of the jet ways on E Concourse hadn't been used in 5 years after Delta Airlines moved to Concourse D in April 2013. In May of 2018 I was working at the airport when I noticed that they were starting to remove the jet ways. I went over to gate E63 where they were just beginning to remove the jet way. I noticed that the control panel was still intact. I then asked a worker if he could remove the control panel in one piece because I wanted to. He said sure, and ten minutes later it had been removed and I took it home at the end of my shift.
I am positive if you replace the wires in the back and attach a power supply you could get the operate (I mean light up). If you know what you are doing you could even use this control panel to operate things possibly even light switches, and other electrical devices.
This is cool. If you knew the control voltage I'm sure you could get it to light up. You can put 12 volt bulbs in it with a 12 volt supply and make it light up for certain. You need to make sure about the voltage on the instruments before you hook them up or they could be damaged. When I worked on FLIRS for TI in the 80's, US military aircraft used a 115 delta three phase ac and 24 VDC power. I'm not sure if commercial aircraft did the same. Look for voltage listed on the back of the instruments. This would look neat illuminated.
Way cool retro Eastern Airlines piece. My granddad was a frequent business flier back in the 60s-70s, and of all the domestic airlines Eastern was his favorite
Yeah, Eastern was my favourite too. I Guess we can call my traveling "business". LOL !