Red Horse -- runway project decreases FOD

KIRKUK REGIONAL AIR BASE, Iraq -- RED HORSE Airmen begin to lay asphalt on a runway here recently. The team is made up of Airmen from around the Air Force who are here for approximately 90 days to repair the runway. The project will help reduce FOD and eliminate cracks and potholes of the old surface. They've completed the milling of 1.3 million square feet of runway and are in the process of laying down 38,000 tons of asphalt. The job is due to be completed Oct 1. (U.S Air Force photo/Senior Airman Randi Flaugh)

Into the night

KIRKUK REGIONAL AIR BASE, Iraq -- Red Horse Airmen begin to lay asphalt on the runway here Aug 28. The team is made up of Airmen from around the Air Force and are here for approximately 90 days to repair the runway. The project will help reduce FOD and eliminate cracks and potholes of the old surface. They've completed the milling of 1.3 million square feet of runway and are in the process of laying down 38,000 tons of asphalt. The job is due to be completed Oct. 1. (U.S Air Force photo/ Senior Airman Randi Flaugh)

Red Horse -- runway project decreases FOD

KIRKUK REGIONAL AIR BASE, Iraq -- Staff Sgt. Curtis George, a pavement and construction equipment operator deployed with RED HORSE, operates a paving machine here recently. The RED HORSE team is made up of Airmen from around the Air Force who are here for approximately 90 days to repair the runway. The team will lay nearly 38,000 tons of asphalt and will have milled nearly 1.3 million square feet of the runway by the end of the project scheduled for Oct 1. The project will help reduce FOD and eliminate cracks and potholes of the old surface. Sergeant George is deployed from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C., and calls Eunice, La., home. (U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Randi Flaugh)

Red Horse -- runway project decreases FOD

KIRKUK REGIONAL AIR BASE, Iraq -- Staff Sgt. David Curry, a pavement and construction equipment operator deployed with RED HORSE, adjusts the screed on a paving machine here recently. The RED HORSE team is made up of Airmen from around the Air Force who are here for approximately 90 days to repair the runway. The team will lay nearly 38,000 tons of asphalt and will have milled nearly 1.3 million square feet of the runway by the end of the project scheduled for Oct 1. The project will help reduce FOD and eliminate cracks and potholes of the old surface. Sergeant Curry is deployed from Hurlburt Field, Fla., and calls Palm Day, Fla., home. (U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Randi Flaugh)

RED HORSE runway project decreases FOD

Published Sept. 8, 2008
By Tech. Sgt. Jeff Walston
506th Air Expeditionary Group Public Affairs

KIRKUK REGIONAL AIR BASE, Iraq -- Repair work on Runway 14-32, which is being accomplished to reduce the possibilities of damage to aircraft here, is scheduled to be completed by Oct 1.

The project involves approximately 40 Airmen from RED HORSE Squadrons around the Air Force who have assembled here to complete the task.

"The big concern on the airfield is that broken pieces of pavement can be very dangerous to aircraft operating on the runway at high speed," said Lt. Col. Elisabeth Auld, the 506th Expeditionary Operations Support Squadron commander. "Even more dangerous would be if an aircraft ingests a piece of pavement into an engine."

Asphalt runways, in some aspects, are no different than asphalt roads back home. Pavement begins to crack and break up, and small potholes grow bigger.

"The civil engineering community conducted a pavement evaluation of the entire airfield in March and confirmed the surface of the runway was poor," Auld said. "Luckily, only the surface of the runway was failing."

The deterioration of airport runways is one of the most serious problems concerning transportation in general. When failure occurs, reconstruction is expensive.

"The existing runway has block cracking and pot holes," said Capt. Myles Gilbert, who's in charge of the RED HORSE personnel assigned to the project. "The current asphalt is a lower grade: its deterioration is happening faster than it should, so we have to replace it all.

"We're taking off about four and a half inches of the old asphalt -- milling it up -- then we're going to go back and put new asphalt down," he said. "This will decrease foreign object debris problems that we have on the runway right now and increase the structural capacity of the runway."

Milling, which began Aug. 5, has not significantly affected flight operations.

"Any time you close a portion of an airfield for construction, you impact flight operations," Auld said. "However, we've worked with RED HORSE and all of the organizations who operate out of our airfield to phase the project in such a way the impact is minimized as much as possible. Everyone understands this major runway repair will only make the airfield better in the long run."

A project of this size and importance has numerous benefits above and beyond just the repair of a runway.

"The number one benefit will be safety -- no more broken pieces of asphalt to worry about," Auld said. RED HORSE is also adding shoulders to the sides of the runway, which will further reduce the chance a rock or other objects can get onto the runway and damage an aircraft.

"A second benefit is manpower savings," she said. "Right now we send our airfield managers out to the airfield to check for any loose pavement kicked up by large aircraft every time one lands, which is several times a day."

The third and most important benefit is that the mission as the Northern Iraq air hub to receive cargo and passengers will continue unabated, Auld said. The repairs benefit not just the base but also local contractors.

"(RED HORSE) is removing 1.3 million square feet of asphalt (from the runway) and putting back 38,000 tons of asphalt," said Gilbert, who is deployed here from Hurlburt Field, Fla. Iraqi contractors have provided the new personnel that RED HORSE Airmen will use for the runway.