| 'Red Horse' rides in to Tallil 6/30/2003 - TALLIL AIR BASE, Iraq (AFPN) -- The 1st Expeditionary Red Horse Group stepped off a plane here June 26, arriving on the very runway they came to repair. While here, an 11-person heavy operational repair team will fix more than 40 surface chips in both base runways, according to officials. Once repairs are complete, the runways will be able to withstand larger aircraft that will eventually land here. While the runways are safe for the aircraft here now, the excessive chipping and cracking make it questionable for prolonged and extensive use by larger, heavier airframes, according to officials. "Basically, (the runway) hasn't been repaired for the past twelve years -- probably not since the Iraqis left it after the end of the (1991) Gulf War," said 1st Lt. Bryan Cooper, the group's deployed commander. "This runway was built back in 1980 by the French, and the lack of maintenance and severe environmental conditions here have really taken their toll on the surface." Repairs are expected to take approximately three weeks and will be accomplished in two separate phases. The first phase of repairs will take about 12 days, he said. Engineers will make cuts in and around the damaged area and remove them. They will then apply a special material to fill the voids. The material is a rapid-repair concrete-replacement substance that produces a bonded, rock-like material and is a high-performance concrete substitute. After the first runway is completed, the second phase will repair the outside of the other runway. "The outside runway will not close during repairs," Cooper said. "(It) will still be able to accept inbound traffic while we're working on it, and we expect repairs on this phase to only take approximately a week." Red Horse teams are mobile civil engineer units that are trained and equipped to perform heavy repairs and upgrade airfields and facilities. They also support weapons systems deployed to any theater. |
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