When the project came up for funding by U.S. The airfield lighting system falls in the lap of DPW for maintaining it. That was just patching it over and over, and when the patches got to where they weren’t working, we wasted a lot of money.” “Every time we would have a blackout, we would spend a quarter of a million bucks to get it back up and running. “The maintenance costs of keeping it running while we were trying to replace it were steadily going up,” said Dyrdek. In the meantime, they continued to expend funds in an attempt to keep the airfield open until the project could be funded.Ī fuel truck driver travels along a taxiway guided by the blue LED lighting along the edges. The replacement project had been on the annual work plan for the past seven years, according to Dyrdek. There weren’t very many parts that were any good.” “Even if the lights were working, there was steam coming out of the manholes where the electricity would actually boil the water,” said Dyrdek. ![]() Dyrdek said rain water would often gather in the 8-feet deep ditches. The workers are in the process of replacing incandescent lighting along the main runway with LED lighting.īased on 1940s technology, the wiring, to include all the controllers, transformers, regulators and breakers, was not housed in protective conduits but rather buried directly, some of it in the covered drainage ditches.įort Knox Directorate of Public Works energy manager R.J. ![]() (Photo Credit: Courtesy of Rickey Webb) VIEW ORIGINAL 2 / 2 Show Caption + Hide Caption –Ī backhoe rests at the end of the day after crews take off work. Officials said the wiring would cause the standing water to boil, sometimes knocking out power to the airfield. “Without runway lights we’re done at night you can’t land.”Įxposed wiring ran through manholes under the airfield, along with rain water. It would knock out our approach lights and runway lights. “So we would lose power to the airfield facilities. “When it rained hard, the manholes and raceways that hold the airfield lighting wiring would fill up with water, it would cause a short, and it would blow circuit breakers,” said Webb. Time and deterioration began to take an ever increasingly high toll roughly seven years ago. The addition of LED lighting has made them the recipients of some excellent timing.Ĭonsidered the oldest active runway in Kentucky dating back to its wartime establishment in October 1918, Webb said Godman’s wiring was likely last updated sometime in the 1940s. Webb said the original project was designed to upgrade the airfield’s electrical grid. “The LED lighting is moving us to the 21st century.” ![]() “This is a really huge deal,” said Rickey Webb, airfield manager at Godman. The unassuming LED lights are also pointing the way toward the future of military airfield lighting. Small blue lights lining the edge of the taxiways point the way for pilots flying to and from Fort Knox’s Godman Army Airfield. ![]() (Photo Credit: Eric Pilgrim, Fort Knox News) VIEW ORIGINALįORT KNOX, Ky. The airfield’s electrical system has been replaced and construction crews are in the process of replacing the lighting, which will make the airfield the first to have all LED lighting. An Army helicopter crew arrives at Fort Knox’s Godman Army Airfield at sunset May 19, 2020, guided by a mixture of LED and incandescent lighting.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |