Western Air DC-3

A knock-out shot. I love images that treat the subject of "transportation" (like this one!).

I am not an engineer but engineering interests me and when I look at what seem pretty heavy steps that appear to be pulled up by pulling on both chains, it strikes me that it must take a lot of strength as it looks difficult to get any leverage effect on the chains without leaning a very long way out from the fuselage. The simple answer may be that a member of the ground staff raises the steps. Only Buster Crabb could pull up the steps from the inside of the aircraft while escaping with a large chested blond. Watch the next exciting episode of Flash Gordon in " Having Fun in Hollywood"

Nice picture by the way

@pentaxuser Interesting observations. I was at the Twin Falls airport Sunday night to pick up my wife from a flight from Salt Lake City and got there a little early. The airport here is small, and the ground staff rolls a folding stairway up to the passenger flights that come in (only one airline -- Delta; and only one Delta plane, an Airbus A320). Arriving passengers walk down the stairway and then cross maybe 10 yards of tarmac to enter the terminal (lots of fun in the winter when it's snowing). Anyway, I watched the Delta flight attendant lower the exit door of the aircraft before the airport ground crew rolled the stairway into place. The exit door didn't look all that different than the one pictured here, actually, but her labors didn't seem to cause her to strain, and she managed to get it done without leaning out of the airplane (not too surprising, I guess). I haven't had a chance to see how the door is closed before take-off, but I'm guessing it's a ground crew job. Um, for the sake of completeness, I'll note here that I didn't see Buster or any blondes.