b'76 YCERUNWAYS 2022Apron at Centralia Shows Minimal WearAfter Three Decades of Use BY KRISTEN RINDFLEISCHThe 30-year-old apron at Centralia/James T. FieldLooking Back Memorial Airport (YCE) in Huron Park, ON, has onlyDuring World War II, the airport served as a training base for pilots of recently started to show a few cracks, thanks to athe Royal Canadian Air Force and other Commonwealth troops. In fiberglass material installed between its asphalt layers in 1993. A1947, it was renamed RCAF Station Centralia. After its military use series of site visits to YCE by the product manufacturer confirmedended in 1967, the facility reemerged as Huron Air Park with several that the areas reinforced with fiberglass have held up better thanmanufacturing companies as tenants. The airport later became others paved at the same time without it.known as Centralia/James T. Field Memorial Airport.New United Goderich Inc., a privately held corporation, hasOntario Development Corp. acquired the airport in the late owned and operated the airport since 1997. These days, YCE is1960s and updated the airfield in 1992. Due to harsh weather primarily a hub for heavy maintenance and aircraft modifications,conditions in southern Ontario, paved surfaces were experiencing with two large paint bays; workshops for interior refurbishment,severe cracking, and the apron had become highly oxidized and composite/structures repair and custom cabinetry; an avionicsbrittle. Its surface layer showed various types of cracks, posing a diagnostic department and an engineering department. Onepotential threat to aircraft safety from loose debris being sucked of its two hangars is large enough to accommodate a Boeinginto jet engines.737 or Airbus A320. With a workforce of more than 100 skilled employees, YCE provides a one-stop option with a variety ofInitially, Ontario Development considered adding a thicker interior and exterior services for aircraft owners.overlay to the apron without any reinforcement, but that approach was deemed expensive and only a temporary solution because Two runways5,012 and 4,400 feet longsuit the variousthermal stresses would cause the cracks to resurface over Gulfstreams, Learjets, Falcons and other heavy corporatetime. As an alternative, engineers recommended the GlasGrid and private aircraft that fly in and out for maintenance andPavement Reinforcement System as a more cost-effective and refurbishment. The reinforced apron is located in front of thedurable option. GlasGrid 8501 was specified to create a strong airfields control tower, which was decommissioned in 1967.interlayer reinforcement to resist the spread of reflective cracking.September 2023AirportImprovement.com'