After more than a decade in the works, the Augusta Municipal Airport is getting ready to repave its runway. Because of disrepair and large bumps on the pavement, the runway will be fully shut down from Jan. 8 until mid-February, and then again in late March through October. As the airport has one runway, airplanes will not be able to take off or land during construction, which is an approximately $11-million effort. “The runway is in poor condition,” said Ray Self, Augusta Municipal Airport manager. “It has pretty decent-sized cracks. It’s pretty rough when you land on it.” Along with being narrower and shorter than many runways, the Augusta Airport, a taxpayer-funded public location, has a large hump in the middle of the runway, creating a line-of-sight problem. “So if you’re on one end of the runway, you cannot see the other end of the runway, which is pretty important if there’s an aircraft on the other end,” Self said. Because the airport is shifting the runway south by about 500 feet, the area will need extra work. The airport will close for preliminary dirt work on Jan. 8 and reopen at 8 a.m. Feb. 19. The final closure for repair work will begin at the end of March or early April and last through the first or second week of October, Self said. The Federal Aviation Administration is funding most of the $11-million project, but the other 10%, around $1 million, will require local funding. Because the runway is both shorter and slimmer than current standards, it will increase both its length and width, moving from 4,200 feet to 4,500 feet and widening from 60 feet to 75 feet, meeting current FAA standards. The increase in size will not only help smaller aircraft, but it will allow larger planes to utilize the Wichita-area airport.
Source: Wichita Business Journal
