The service door stair restored

Suomeksi

The Caravelle restoration team usually uses the right-hand side service door, located opposite to the passenger door. It is smaller than the passenger door, but more convenient to use in the daily activities as it is located on the side of the office container. The problem has been that we haven’t had a suitable stair for the door.
  
The picture below was taken on 6 October 2025, when the fuselage was cleaned on the outside after the summer. The stair in the picture was already in use in Pansio where the aircraft was being restored during the winter 2022-23. We had to build additional steps to the top and bottom to make the height match and to have safe access to the doorway.

In summer Inter Handling Finland Oy donated us a used airport stair, which had a perfect height to fit our service door. The stair looked rather worn but was sturdy and safe to use. The picture below was taken on 9 September 2024.

Several alternatives for repainting the stair were investigated. The main idea was to have it sandblasted and painted twice. We had paint left over from painting the aircraft so there would have been enough of grey primer and white top-coat paint.

However, transporting the stair to be sandblasted turned out to be a problem, and the painting plans ground to a halt. The stair was slightly too wide and too tall for ordinary truck transport, so in autumn 2024 we decided, for economic reasons, to leave its refurbishment to wait for better times.

In early autumn 2025 Inter Handling contacted us and offered to sandblast and paint the stair in their premises at Turku airport. We accepted this offer with cheers.

When the Inter Handling stairs were taken to be painted, we took the temporary stair (seen in the first photo) into use once more.

After a couple of months we got the refurbished and re-painted stair back into place. The new-looking stair was handed over by the chairman of the Inter Handling Finland Oy board, Mr. Tero Nurminen. In the photo taken on 12 November 2025 he is seen on the right, with Ismo Matinlauri from the Caravelle team.

Next spring when the weather gets warmer, the painting will be finalized when the logo of Aviation Museum Society Finland is painted above the words Turku Airport.

Aviation Museum Society Finland thanks Inter Handling Finland Oy for supporting our Caravelle project by donating and refurbishing the service door stair.

Photos: Jouko Tarponen

Translation to English: Erja Reinikainen