Staircases are often used to allow passengers to walk from the tarmac to the passenger compartment of an aircraft. Similarly, staircases allow cargo handlers to walk from the tarmac into a cargo hold of the aircraft. The staircases used to access the passenger compartment or cargo hold of the aircraft are typically stored in a hangar or on the tarmac at an airport facility. The staircases are also often equipped with wheels so that they may be transported from their storage locations to adjacent the aircraft. In some instances the staircases may be mounted on a vehicle capable of travelling from a hangar or other waiting area of an airport to the aircraft. The vehicle may also be capable of raising the staircase to a height suitable for a person to access the aircraft passenger compartment or cargo hold via the staircase.
Such movable staircases are heavy, expensive, and also require at least a paved or unpaved pathway over which the staircase can be moved from its storage/parking area to the aircraft. Although this is not generally a problem at many modern airports, some airports in remote and/or undeveloped parts of the world may still not be equipped with wheeled staircases and/or with adequate pathways that may allow a wheeled staircase to be transported from a hangar/storage area to the aircraft.
One example of an aircraft that may travel to such remote and underdeveloped airports is the Flying Eye Hospital of Orbis (http://www.orbis.org). The flying eye hospital is housed in an aircraft, in which the passenger compartment serves as a mobile eye clinic, and the cargo compartment serves as a storage area for medical supplies and other equipment. Once the Orbis aircraft lands at an airport, patients will require a staircase and/or ramp to climb up from the tarmac to the passenger compartment to receive treatment. Likewise, medical personnel will require a staircase to deplane and/or climb up from the tarmac to the cargo hold to retrieve medical supplier or equipment.
There is a need for a staircase that can be easily disassembled and stored in the cargo hold of the aircraft, particularly when the aircraft travels to remote or underdeveloped airports or landing areas. This may allow the staircase to be used even at airfields that may not be equipped with wheeled staircases or may not have ground facilities to provide staircases to access the passenger or cargo compartments of an aircraft. The modular staircase of the present disclosure represents an improvement over the prior art and solves one or more of the problems set forth above and/or other problems of the prior art.