According to popular sentiment, it can be easier to move an entire airport rather than railroad tracks that run through or near it. But Fort Worth Alliance Airport (AFW) managed to move the tracks. And a state road as well.
Completing airfield construction around the hustle and bustle of fully operational commercial service is challenging enough. But the margin for error is almost nonexistent when flights are grounded right before Christmas and the work window is just 15 days.
Sitting on a small, exclusive island off the southeast coast of Georgia, McKinnon St. Simons Island Airport (SSI) serves an upscale population of private aircraft operators. Nevertheless, the airport faced a distinct financial quandary when it needed to resurface its badly deteriorating secondary runway: such projects are not eligible for FAA Airport Improvement
Program funds.
There's more to the new $8 million main runway at Porter County Regional Airport (VPZ) in Valparaiso, IN, than meets the eye. Its point of difference lies beneath the surface in a sub-base built primarily with materials recycled from the previous ailing runway via a process called full-depth reclamation.
In metropolitan Atlanta, locals commonly refer to the complex roadway intersection where Interstate 85 meets Interstate 285 as Spaghetti Junction. But it's not the only interchange to earn the descriptive moniker.
Like many airports, Grand Junction Regional (GJT) performs its airfield repairs late at night and early in the morning to avoid disrupting flight operations. Naturally, this stretches projects across more days because crews work in shorter shifts.
With a notoriously vexing airfield configuration, Long Beach Airport (LGB) in southern California is leading the charge for an FAA initiative to reduce runway incursions throughout the United States.
Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW) recently completed the reconstruction of one of its primary arrivals runways, 4L-22R, and several associated taxiways. Major construction began in April 2016, and the runway reopened just seven months later in early November.
Before Coles County Memorial Airport (MTO) in Mattoon, IL, reconstructed its 41-year-old main runway, the project team looked far and wide for the best way to keep costs down and cause the least possible disruption of day-to-day operations. The preferred strategy' Rubblization, a process that breaks down existing concrete into small, uniform chunks, thereby making it an ideal base for subsequent layers of asphalt or concrete.
In early 2014, the city of Dallas and Dallas Love Field (DAL) were in a unique and ultimately timely position from operational and funding perspectives alike. The expiration of the Wright Amendment in October 2014 allowed air carriers to modify flight routes out of DAL, thereby increasing air traffic and changing the aircraft types needed to handle traffic. In addition, the upcoming 2017 expiration of the letter of intent associated with the long-running Love Field Modernization Program will make federal discretionary and entitlement dollars available for airfield-related projects that had been deferred because of the modernization program.
Airfield maintenance can be tough at any location, but few places in North America present more challenges than northern Alaska. Keeping runway and taxiway lights working at the remote airfields that dot the state can be extremely challenging, and workers who undertake the job often work in downright punishing conditions.
