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Bennington VT runway closure

CharlieN

Registered User
Down low in the hills of Vermont USA
On April 30 2018 the KDDH runway and taxiway will be closed for a deep bed rebuilding. The runway will be dug down 3' in order to provide a stable crack resistant surface for the future.
The work schedule is for a 90 day closure as such the scheduled reopening would be July 30th which can be extended if weather succeeds to interfere.

From what I am told by the VTrans there will be no operations on the grass allowed so this is not a happy period for those needing fuel or other services this spring.

After the runway replacement at KDDH the contractor returns to KRUT to continue with the new taxiway construction.
 
Hopefully they don’t dig drainage ditches as well. 🤬

Tim Allen better get a fuel tank filled up to handle all the local traffic.


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My understanding is they intend to keep the turf available for future use but since they have to work deep and are doing the taxiway at the same time rather than the original plan of the taxiway separate as they did at Middlebury VT last year, which of course had that airport shut down for a longer duration.

Being the taxiway is going to be full length and is all new they will have allot of area torn up as well as depoting material that even letting planes use the grass nearby is not going to be an option.

On thing that has a few of us worried is this Bennington job postpones the start of this years construction at KRUT and might affect when I have the B-17 tour in late September.
 
Charlie, my primary beef is with the State of VT and how they designed a water runoff plan to meet state regulations, at an airport (Middlebury) that hasn't had a water retention, runoff, ponding, or any sort of water problem since the airport was built by the Quesnel's in the 1950's. Water simply doesn't exist there.

So an airport that once had a 2500' strip with a 1000' turf overrun, landing lights and nice grass "runoff" areas on each side of the runway...... now has a 3200' (?) paved runway with essentially no overrun, a hump in the middle of the runway, water "collection" ditches between taxiway and runway that will cause significant (major) damage, and taxiways that have been narrowed. I mean really, narrower? Ditches? I'm not sure some aircraft can stay on the taxiway at the corners.
:rant:

That and they took out perfectly good runway lights years ago as they must have been a safety hazard....

Grrrrr......
 
The neighbors in Middlebury have not been to friendly. I truly do not understand people who buy a house near an existing airport then try to shut it down. Many had hoped that RW lighting would go in last year but there is still fear of how close the hill is to the east. Not even sure if that has been a true issue in the past. Probably just some ever increasing FAA regulation making us safer now that even a cub can have terrain avoidance systems onboard.
 
The hill is a non-issue. Until someone in Montpelier decided it was too close it was never even a consideration. After years of flying left downwind I struggle to visit now and make right downwind.

East Middlebury or not, the neighbors had no influence on the redesign of the terrain for supposed water collection and taxiway widths. And if you're going to rebuild a runway, why would you not grade it to a single plane? Just non-flying paper-pushing idiots.
 
I will ask Chris or Cisco next time I am with them. We have a board meeting coming up soon. Usually everything gets blamed on the FAA but I find it hard to believe they called for the drainage. More than likely the environmentalists since during the reconstruction the contractor was only allowed to have two acres opened up at a time due to some wetlands regulation. No local person knew that was wetland.
Even still they could backfill with a quick draining soil up top allowing for a level surface.
 
....no influence on the redesign of the terrain for supposed water collection and taxiway widths. And if you're going to rebuild a runway, why would you not grade it to a single plane? Just non-flying paper-pushing idiots.

We are facing a similar rebuild and shutdown at our airport summer of 2019.
Plans now appear to be to shut her down, even though the 3000' x 25' taxiway is to remain unmolested and could be used for temporary flight ops.
As far as runway design goes, our runway (built 28 years ago) uses "shed drainage", meaning it all drains to one side.
It's never been a problem. But the new runway will be a crowned configuration, as this is "the FAA standard".
(you hear that a lot during airport revamps).
Of course, now we need a storm water drainage system on the other side of the runway,
which will add a lot of time and cost to the project, but what the heck? It's the FAA standard.
Oh yeah, we have a single turnoff, right at midfield.
Works great because most folks can turn off at midfield landing from either direction,
clearing the runway and thereby improving traffic flow on a busy day.
They're gonna move that turnoff to one side or the other, because it's currently aligned with the taxiway up to the ramp.
Somebody might accidently taxi the wrong way down that taxiway, past the wrong way signs,
and unintentionally pull out on the runway and cause a crash.
Never happened yet in 28 years, but what the heck? FAA standard, you know.
 
I was just involved as a building committee member working on a new office building, to be constructed for approx $725zk. It also had close to 100K extra to address storm water runoff and retention. Huge part of the permit process today.
They ruined the back lawn at my local municipal hangar site with a storm water retention pond. Mr Obama deemed our local airport"shovel ready" so we got tons of QE2 funding. Over 3.4 mill on our sleepy municpal airport.
I dont know how you do this everyday Kirby C

Jim
 
Yup there are leaving one 1200ft grass strip, as I understand it the grass strip on the West end will be a taxi way. The airport will be officially closed but after hours who knows who will land somewhere and taxi to the pumps

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Yup there are leaving one 1200ft grass strip, as I understand it the grass strip on the West end will be a taxi way. The airport will be officially closed but after hours who knows who will land somewhere and taxi to the pumps.

Somebody talked like that at my airport too, my concern would be that some busybody (perhaps from the agency which operates the airport) seeing that and ratting out the pilot for landing on a closed airport. Safe or not, that might bring on a hassle with FAA or whoever.
 
Not knowing the fuel pumps there, does your n number get into the payment of fuel?

My wife will be at KDDH this afternoon dropping off B-17 posters.
 
....Mr Obama deemed our local airport"shovel ready" so we got tons of QE2 funding. Over 3.4 mill on our sleepy municpal airport....

I read the aviation news stories about the FAA spending loads of money on airport improvements with a different point of view these days.
The writers always put a "it's a good thing" spin on it, but I wonder how many of these projects are really needed?
Our runway is now 28 years old and holding up great, probably with another 10 years left in it,
but FAA has
decided that the runway had a useful life of 20-25 years so we're getting a new one whether we like it or not.
The FAA can't / won't fund any number of small projects which would really improve our airport, all of which could probably be done for $200K,
but they are determined to spend $2M+ to solve a runway problem that doesn't yet exist.
 
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