Tyndall APEs paving way for AF

TYNDALL AFB, Fla. - It takes about 2.2B square feet of pavement to launch an Air Force. In 2019, a team of airfield engineers from at Tyndall AFB set a blistering pace to ensure that pavement was able to support aircraft worldwide - flying more than 1.2M hours. The Air Force Civil Engineer Center’s Airfield Pavement Evaluation (APE) team set the milestone while supporting global flight operations, but also responded to three natural disasters, including the 2018 Hurricane Michael that slammed the Panama City base. The APE team evaluates and ensures the viability of more than 200 airfields worldwide, looking at surface conditions to risk of foreign object damage, said Capt. Ben Johnson, APE branch chief. The team’s flexibility and surge capabilities were tested in 2018d. A week after “Cat 5” Hurricane Michael, they were on scene to make sure the Tyndall runway was structurally capable to support inbound aircraft bringing rescue supplies. Less than two months later, the team was at Joint-Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, after back-to-back earthquakes damaged the base. The team then deployed to Offutt AFB, Neb., where extensive flooding from the Platte River overwhelmed 30 buildings and about 3,000 feet of runway. The team was in the midst of an evaluation at Cannon AFB, N.M., when they received the evaluation request from Offutt. They arrived in less than 72 hours. “They just spent the last four months evaluating multiple airfields in the Middle East,” said Col. John Tryon, senior leader of the team. “Nobody else in the Department of Defense can provide this level of detailed, responsive airfield structural analysis for the war-fighter.” In the midst of completing evaluations at 22 installations across 10 major commands, Johnson said the team also identified opportunities to improve safety, increase operations by 25 percent and save more than 240 hours of annual maintenance by replacing outdated trucks. “This is such a great team, and these young Airmen are among the brightest CE officers and engineer assistants that we have in the Air Force,” Tryon said. (Source: Air Force Installation and Mission Support Center 01/28/20)