Did you know that building a landing strip is more complicated than just the cost of a landing surface?
Do you already own the property that you intend building a runway upon? Your runway will need to be certified for a specific aircraft weight and category, which involves specific engineering. There are also additional requirements that must be considered such as a safety risk assessment, references to ICAO Annexes, Airspace design and approval plus specialists that can provide such a turnkey solution. The good news is that there are companies that specialize in runway design. Composite Base Rig Mats is such a company specializing in creating the required surfaces with pre-engineered interlocking aircraft landing mats.
These are made available as either grass reinforcement mats ( mats that gets rolled / compacted into the surface to prevent ground displacement), composite plastic mats or from aluminum that has been pre-engineered to be made available expeditiously. All these landing mats have been categorized under the label `Pro Aero, the latter mats as mentioned having been designed with influence from the Pierced steel planks (PSP), used in the second world war, around the 1940’s. They were used by various countries to provide safe landing areas to facilitate the numerous military activities, and are still in existence to today, although nowadays they are utilized more frequently by mining and exploration companies.
People are mainly familiar with runways being constructed by pouring large areas of concrete over rebar on top of graded gravel. Once the concrete has been poured and cured, they bring a special machine to put grooves into the runway, to help channel water, preventing aquaplaning off the runway surface. A runway is a surface that is developed in proportion to the activities that will be required for that facility.
What needs to be considered is the type of access available for construction vehicles and personnel involved with such a project? Are the runways to be found in such remote locations where it is almost impossible to get to by following standard roads, or have the roads deteriorated due to erosion, poor maintenance, or neglect, resulting in unforeseen surface barriers? There are unfortunately many unknown variables that could hamper such a project using standard gravel runway development. It would make sense to have pre-engineered runway mats that can be flown in by helicopter and deployed directly on-site. A composite runway mat offers several advantages, especially in temporary or expeditionary airfield operations.
These include:
- Lightweight and Portable
- Rapid deployment
- Corrosion resistance
- Durability and Strength
- Reduced Maintenance
- Environmental adaptability
Composite mats for airstrips are suited to remote areas due to their adaptability and versatility in ecologically sensitive or rugged terrains.
Pro Aero mats such as AM2 Aircraft landing mats, enhancement of the outdated PSP – now available from US$ 250/m2 – this includes the runway panels with a 25 year plus lifespan, side interlocking system and epoxy non-slip traction – upgrades includes reversible runway mats, dual traction, perimeter anchors, runways anchoring (not piercing the actual runway mats, but a recessed anchoring system) critical key locks, anodizing and a multitude of other enhancements.
For further information please email Martin via info@aircraftlandingmats.com
