Airman improves efficiency, runway safety

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Jenna K. Caldwell
  • 22nd Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
MCCONNELL AIR FORCE BASE, Kan. --  As an aircraft approaches McConnell’s runway, 2,000 lights within 83,000 square feet are used to help pilots descend safely. Maintaining that many lights in that large of an area to ensure the safety of the aircraft can be a daunting task.

Tech. Sgt. Eric Rhodes, a 22nd Operation Support Squadron airfield management operations noncommissioned officer in charge, created a method to get the most out of the $2 million system which identifies outages in the airfield lighting system and where they are located.

“It’s an airfield lighting map that points out every location of lights on the airfield,” said Rhodes. “It used to take two to three hours to actually find that one specific light that was out is now and it’s easily pinpointed and relayed to civil engineering to fix.”

The airfield lights provide visual guidance for pilots during arrival and takeoff. This advancement is expected to improve response times by 84 percent and save approximately 1,500 man hours per year at McConnell. The idea being considered to be implemented throughout the Air Force.

“It’s a pioneering event that allows pilots to arrive safely,” Master Sgt. Bryan Masters, 22nd OSS airfield manager. “My folks are entrusted to know the status of the lights. If there is a certain amounts of outages within that system it is deemed useless. If there are too many outages, they have to shut down the runway and cease operations.”

The method also involves a camera that faces the lights and provides a live feed, which allows a visual on the functionality of the equipment. Before, the airfield management Airmen had to travel to the end of the flight line and cross a creek, which can be impassable during inclement weather, to observe the condition of the equipment.

“Mission efficiency is the biggest thing that has improved,” said Rhodes “We want to make sure the pilots have everything they need and can take off at a moment’s notice without worrying about lights malfunctioning on the airfield. The biggest thing is to make sure the airfield is good to go and that we can fix issues that arise as fast as possible.”