PAVEMENT ANALYSIS

Just a little review about pavement. 

Yesterday, a company that does pavement analysis studies for the FAA was at the airport conducting an assessment of the pavement conditions at the St. Clair Regional Airport.  When they surveyed the common use taxiway, they made the comment that they rate pavement conditions between 1 and 100, and that the common use taxiway appears to be about a 2.   That is a 2 out of a possible 100, that is 1 point above the lowest rating out of a possible 100.   Just to remind everyone of the comments by Ron Blum from the city council meeting in Jan 2013.

“Mayor Blum stated but before we do any repairs, so to speak to the runway surfaces, he would invite every St. Clair resident, every county resident, everyone in the state of Missouri, in the United States to go down and look at that runway and then go travel our city streets and tell me which one is in worse repair.”

What is misleading about the mayor’s statement is that he is only talking about the runway, but what do the Feds say?

Airport Facilities to be Maintained.

This section applies to all airport facilities shown on the Airport Layout Plan (ALP) as initially dedicated to aviation use by an instrument of transfer or federal grant agreement. Essentially this means that the sponsor cannot discontinue maintenance of a runway or taxiway or any other part

of the airport used by aircraft until the FAA formally relieves the sponsor of the federal maintenance obligation. The federal obligations of the sponsor remain in force throughout the

useful life of the facility, but no longer than 20 years – except for land that specifically obligates

the airport in perpetuity.

The insurance provider for the city just recently has paid one tenant over a thousand dollars for propeller repairs due to FOD.  This was a brand new out of the box propeller, put in use for about 20 minutes, and was damaged.