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ST. LOUIS- The cement is laid, the stripes painted and the light bulbs in place.
But before airplanes can start using Lambert Field's new runway, it must pass muster with three mission specialists with the Federal Aviation Administration.
They've been conducting stomach-churning maneuvers in a twin engine turboprop airplane since Tuesday, approaching the airfield from all directions and flying as low as 50 feet across the airstrip. The flight tests, which end Friday, are the key hurdle the $1.1 billion runway must clear before airplanes can start using it. Airport officials plan to open the airstrip to traffic on April 13 and are working on arranging the first official landing. Those plans could change if the FAA crew finds a system glitch that can't be fixed in time.
"We check and recheck and make sure everything's perfect," said Bill Hoffman, a technician, after about six hours in the belly of the airplane. As his two colleagues swoop in and around the airfield Wednesday, he sat in back examining data, looking to see if systems on the ground are properly calibrated.
The Lambert expansion team turned over the runway to the FAA on Nov. 30. Since then, the agency has been installing the navigation systems that will alert pilots when they descend too quickly, too slowly, or are a few feet off center.
Federal aviation and Lambert officials say the runway will boost the number of planes it can handle by 34 percent on a clear day, and 63 percent in sloppy weather.
The airport's other two runways are too close together to handle simultaneous landings in bad weather. Officials have long argued that a third runway would alleviate the delays that come as a result.
But as the FAA crews tested the limits of the landing systems Wednesday, the airport commission approved a two-year lease agreement with American Airlines that would reduce some of the runway's usefulness. The agreement allows the airline to remain in its maintenance hangar at the eastern end of the runway, saving the airport the $24 million expense of relocating it.
Keeping the hangar there means that during bad weather, pilots approaching from the east will not be able to land on the new runway. From the east, the airstrip will be a Category 1 runway, requiring that it be visible to pilots from at least 200 feet in the air for landings. Weather and winds produce these conditions less than 2.5 percent of the time, Deputy Airport Director Gerard Slay said. From the west, the runway could accommodate landings with thick cloud cover on the ground.
"Based on current operations we have at Lambert, it will have no impact on arrivals or departures," Slay said. Annual departures dropped about 38 percent between 2000 and 2004, largely because of American Airlines flight reductions.
STLtoday (St. Louis Post Dispatch)
St. Louis Lambert International Airport
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St. Louis Lambert International Airport's expansion website touts the expansion as a growth builder. It was necessary for the airport to expand the runways in order to keep delays from piling up. But Lambert is not noted for their large numbers of delays. Usually the only delays are due from ground holding delays for the aircraft heading to a city that is experiencing delays at the destination airport. But the runway is complete now and all it is awaiting is final inspection from the FAA.
I would like to know if the new Runway at Lambert International Airport will be open to traffic on April 13th.
Posted by: MIKAILOU DIARRA | February 16, 2006 11:27 AM | Permalink to Comment