The Landing

The Landing is a small mall in Kansas City, Missouri. It was built in 1960, on 63rd Street and Troost Avenue (it also has frontage on East Meyer Boulevard) and it was originally an open air shopping center. The architect of the Landing Mall was Edward Tanner, who was also the architect of the Kansas City Missouri School District Building on 12th and McGee in Downtown.

It was enclosed in 1968, and was renamed The New Landing Mall. So far, no renovation plans have been made. The Landing was named for the landing place of Noah's Ark. There was previously a menagerie mural and play area within the mall. It is managed by Block & Company, which lists its current capacity at 131,497 square feet, with the surrounding traffic at 54,000 cars a day.

One of the mall's original tenants was Macy's, which became Dillard's in 1986. It is now Gold's Department Store.

References

39°00′43″N 94°34′19″W / 39.011848°N 94.571891°W / 39.011848; -94.571891Coordinates: 39°00′43″N 94°34′19″W / 39.011848°N 94.571891°W / 39.011848; -94.571891

Final Fantasy

Final Fantasy (ファイナルファンタジー, Fainaru Fantajī) is a science fiction and fantasy media franchise created by Hironobu Sakaguchi, and developed and owned by Square Enix (formerly Square). The franchise centers on a series of fantasy and science fantasy role-playing video games (RPGs). The eponymous first game in the series, published in 1987, was conceived by Sakaguchi as his last-ditch effort in the game industry; the title was a success and spawned sequels. The video game series has since branched into other genres such as tactical role-playing, action role-playing, massively multiplayer online role-playing, racing, third-person shooter, fighting, rhythm and anime.

Although most Final Fantasy installments are stand-alone stories with different settings and main characters, they feature identical elements that define the franchise. Recurring elements include plot themes, character names, and game mechanics. Plots center on a group of heroes battling a great evil while exploring the characters' internal struggles and relationships. Character names are frequently derived from the history, languages, pop culture, and mythologies of cultures worldwide.

Final Fantasy VIII

Final Fantasy VIII (ファイナルファンタジーVIII, Fainaru Fantajī Eito) is a 1999 role-playing video game developed and published by Square (now Square Enix). It is the eighth major installment in the Final Fantasy series. The game was the series' second 3D installment and the first to consistently use realistically proportioned characters, and introduced a new magic system to the Final Fantasy franchise which removed magic point-based spell-casting. Set on an unnamed fantasy world with science fiction elements, the game follows the story of a group of young mercenaries, led by Squall Leonhart, who are part of an organization named SeeD. Initially traveling to different countries to stop the sorceress Edea, their goal changes to stop a sorceress from the future named Ultimecia from compressing time.

The development of Final Fantasy VIII began in 1997, during the English localization process of Final Fantasy VII. It was produced by Shinji Hashimoto, and directed by Yoshinori Kitase. The music was scored by regular series composer Nobuo Uematsu, and in a series first a vocal piece was written as the game's theme, "Eyes on Me", performed by Faye Wong. The game was positively received by critics, who praised the originality and scope of the game. It was voted the 22nd-best game of all time in 2006 by readers of the Japanese magazine Famitsu. The game was a commercial success; thirteen weeks after its release, Final Fantasy VIII had earned more than US$50 million in sales, making it the fastest-selling Final Fantasy title of all time until Final Fantasy XIII, a multi-platform release. The game shipped 8.15 million copies worldwide by March 31, 2003. Originally for the PlayStation, it was later ported to Windows-based personal computers and became available on PlayStation Network as a PSone Classics title in 2009. As of December 2013, it has sold over 8.5 million copies worldwide.

Landing

Landing is the last part of a flight, where a flying animal, aircraft, or spacecraft returns to the ground. When the flying object returns to water, the process is called alighting, although it is commonly called "landing," "touchdown" or "splashdown" as well. A normal aircraft flight would include several parts of flight including taxi, takeoff, climb, cruise, descent and landing.

Aircraft

Aircraft usually land at an airport on a firm runway or helicopter landing pad, generally constructed of asphalt concrete, concrete, gravel or grass. Aircraft equipped with pontoons (floatplane) or with a boat hull-shaped fuselage (a flying boat) are able to land on water. Aircraft also sometimes use skis to land on snow or ice.

To land, the airspeed and the rate of descent are reduced such that the object descends at a low enough rate to allow for a gentle touch down. Landing is accomplished by slowing down and descending to the runway. This speed reduction is accomplished by reducing thrust and/or inducing a greater amount of drag using flaps, landing gear or speed brakes. When a fixed-wing aircraft approaches the ground, the pilot will move the control column back to execute a flare or round-out. This increases the angle of attack. Progressive movement of the control column back will allow the aircraft to settle onto the runway at minimum speed, landing on its main wheels first in the case of a tricycle gear aircraft or on all three wheels simultaneously in the case of a conventional landing gear-equipped aircraft, commonly referred to as a "taildragger". This is known as flaring.