When we are in Spain,
Scott will be working at Morón Air Base, which is about 30 miles southeast of
Seville. Moron AB is a Spanish Air Force base that hosts a US Air Force
wing and a US Marines unit. The Spanish fly jets, the US Air Force uses
the base as a refueling station/stopover location and the marines fly osprey
aircraft. Under the agreement between the Spanish and the American
militaries, the US Air Force is repairing Taxiway A and improving the infield
drainage. Scott's company has a $6.2 million contract to design and do
the construction work.
Back in May, Scott
travelled to Spain and put together a team to bid the project and prepare the
proposal. Scott's company has an office in Madrid, Spain that is currently designing
the project and Scott has hired a local construction firm, Eiffage, to build
the project. The team is currently working on the design and will begin
the construction in late March/early April. Scott is the Project Manager
and is responsible for getting the work done safely, on time and under budget.
Typically for a project like this, Scott would manage the project from
Denver and assemble a field team to oversee the construction. For this
project, Scott volunteered to lead the field team to oversee the construction
& also keep him in his Project Manager duties.
Taxiway A
Taxiway A is being
replaced as it has deteriorated due to age and use. The weight of the
modern airplanes has caused cracking concrete and the taxiway pavement is
expensive to maintain. The existing pavement will be removed and
recycled. The new pavement section will be thicker/stronger to account
for current and expected future operations.
To allow for work to tie
into the runway, crews will have to temporarily shorten the runway by over
1,000 feet. This requires a lot of paperwork and coordination between
multiple groups and is time consuming. At the end of the taxiway work, the
runway will be restored to its full length. The process for shortening a
runway is called displacing the threshold. The threshold bar is
basically the start of the runway and contains lights - these lights will be
turned off and new lights will have to be installed at the temporary end of the
runway. The process to displace the runway usually takes 2-3 days and
requires the closure of the runway. Since Morón Air Base has only one
runway, this is big deal.
Drainage work
Currently, during
periods of heavy rains, water collects and ponds in the infield of the airfield
close to the runway. This ponded water attracts birds and other wildlife
into the infield. The birds create a bird strike hazard for the planes
and this is a problem. The water ponding issue is caused by undulating
topography and lack of maintenance. To fix this, Scott's company is
developing a fix that will eliminate the ponding water and make the airfield
safer for the pilots by eliminating the bird issue. This will involve
moving a tremendous amount of soil so that surface water will sheet flow to the
newly installed drainages. By re-grading the soil, water will not pond,
but flow off base to a nearby river.
Construction work will
begin in late March/early April and will start with the drainage work.
This work will continue into the fall. Taxiway A work will start in
late April/early May as the US Air Force has a large mission on-going in April
and the runway cannot be shortened until the mission is over. All
pavement work should be finished in August and the Taxiway will be reopened in
September once the concrete has reached its full strength.
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