Runway Reconstruction Underway

  • Published
  • By 1st Lt. Chris Hoyler
  • 51st Fighter Wing Public Affairs
OSAN AIR BASE, Republic of Korea --  We see it in the skies over Osan Air Base everyday - the myriad of fighter aircraft on the Korean peninsula, the Army's Apache helicopters, the mobility, reconnaissance and commercial aircraft supporting our mission or making a stop en route to its final destination. 

All told, Osan's runway sees approximately 85,000 flight operations each year according to the 51st Civil Engineer Squadron, which Sept. 17 kicked off a two-week long project to make major repairs on the flightline, all in an effort to keep the current runway operational while the new runway is constructed. 

The project requires a complete shutdown of the flightline due to many linear cracks, corner and joint spalls, scaling, corner breaks, failed patches, faulting, joint seal damage, shattered slabs and durability cracks. The runway was shut down last in 2007, but this will be the final major repair for the Osan runway before the opening of the new runway in 2013. At that point, the current runway, which was originally built in 1952-53, will be shut down and rebuilt from the ground up. 

"This runway is reaching the end of its service life, but the mission requires that we continue to repair it as necessary until the new runway is open," said Capt. Paul Conner, 51st CES Airfield Project Manager. 

Airmen from the 51st CES perform hundreds of runway spall and patch repairs each year, but the number of flying missions taking place daily creates new problems, leading to this eventual closure for large-scale repairs, which includes a partnership with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and a local Korean company to handle the larger repairs.

The 51st CES Horizontal Repair shop will be repairing the eastern 4,000 ft. of runway, while the contracted personnel repair the western 5,000 ft, and the aggregate repair will require the equivalent of 72 loads of concrete trucks. 

All told, the project will cost upwards of $3 million. 

"Our guys do a great job, but we don't have the amount of personnel to do all of this work in-house," Captain Conner said. 

For now, the various pieces of the Osan mission has continued at Republic of Korea air bases around the peninsula. In addition, several Osan A-10s have departed to participate in Red Flag Alaska 10-1, which kicks off October 1 at Eielson and Elmendorf AFB. 

Captain Conner said the runway will be open by October 3, and that, should an emergency situation dictate opening the runway during construction, his team could have the runway operational within 24 hours.