Albany Airport,WA: Runway 05/23 remains u/s

[poteroo]

Unless you read NOTAMS, this may have escaped your attention.

 

Runway 05/23 is u/s, and it seems likely to remain so for some time, due to it having 'bubbled' soon after the tarmac was laid.

 

The airport owner and the contractors are in dispute, and it appears the matter will soon be in the clutches of the legal profession.

 

Albany is a windy location, with worse westerlies, (W-SW), in winter/spring, so you can guess at how often our flying schools are able to send students solo with only rwy 14/32 available.

 

We believe that the best short term solution is to rip it up, then grade and roll it back to a good gravel surface - but our, (the users), opinion is not highly valued!

 

happy days,

 

 

[Trevor]

Why does'nt that news supprise me Poteroo !! They should have just upgraded the gravel in the first place. Well, thats what I reckon. Trevor

 

 

[Yenn]

If the tarmac bubbled, what really happened? maybe the subgrade and base are perfectly good and it is the tarmac at fault. I am assuming that the tarmac is really hot mix asphalt. The cause of bubbling could be oils in the asphalt or any one of a number of things. If the bubbles were caused by the base material I would have expected them to be called cracking or sinking.

 

 

[poteroo]

Yenn,

 

Have no idea what the cause was. We reckon they didn't rip up enough of the original gravel, and so left themselves with some weak spots under the added base this time. The strip was ready to lay, but then all the bitumin was diverted to finish the new Mandurah bypass on the Perth-Bunbury highway. Then it rained - and the rest, as they say, is history.

 

It promises to be a lawyers picnic. But in the meantime, our students have no into wind runway, and training is suffering.

 

happy days,