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Anyone involved with the 100 daily operations typical at the uncontrolled airfield was notified about the upcoming projects.Ĭontractors leveraged technology to complete both phases of the fast-track project on time. The airport also contacted its charter operators, about 30 owners who base small private aircraft there and officials at the Marine Corps Air Station New River, which uses Albert Ellis for its V-22 Osprey tiltrotor operations. It was work that had to be done and would benefit us all once it was complete.” “We were on a record pace for enplanements (see chart on next page), so I hated to do anything to break that momentum,” he explains. He wanted to give the companies as much time as possible to adjust schedules for the 12 daily flights at OAJ. Express and Delta, as soon as the project was put out to bid in June. 5, to disrupt the fewest possible flights, and work crews used every minute of that window.Īlthough it was a conversation he didn’t look forward to, Vickers notified the airport’s two scheduled airlines, U.S. In just 60 hours, the airport had a new reinforced concrete drainage pipe that’s expected to last for at least 50 years and 6,900 feet of its 7,100-foot runway was resurfaced.

“So we figured we’d maximize our resources and really gang up on the project.” “We had to shut down for 48 hours to get the pipe out,” notes Vickers.

This avoided the far-less appealing option of repaving in five- to six-hour increments each night for at least a week. Airport officials consequently decided to add another half-day to the pipe replacement schedule and repave as much of the runway as possible at the same time. The need for a new drainage pipe not only expanded the scope of the routine runway rehab, it also inspired a change of strategy.Ī minimum two-day shutdown was required to replace the drainage pipe because it crossed underneath the runway near its midpoint rather than near one end. “And, we caught it in time to work it into the same grant year for FAA funds,” notes Vickers. It needed to be replaced.įortunately, that work could be rolled into a routine runway rehab that was already planned. Sleeving or encasing the aging pipe with stronger materials proved unacceptable. Typically, metal drainage pipes last about 20 to 25 years this one was more than 30. “Plus, there were visible signs of deterioration and stress.” “Most pipes are reinforced concrete, so it caught our eye,” recalls John Walz, project manager for engineering consultants Reynolds, Smith and Hills (RS&H). Vickers was surveying spots for a new sanitary sewer system to support future terminal renovations when engineers noticed a corrugated metal drainage pipe running under the airport’s sole runway. Ellis Airport (OAJ), in Richlands/Jacksonville, NC. That’s how it was for Jerry Vickers, airport director of Albert J. Sometimes it’s not the large long-term projects looming on the horizon that cause the headaches it’s the smaller ones that pop up without warning.

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