Airport Surveying

Larry,

I did almost nothing but AP engineering topo/ construction staking for a number of years. To answer your question; yes, get a level and I'll explain why.

Runways and taxiways can roll on for 10 or 15 thousand feet. I don't care how careful you are with a TS (or any other optical instrument) everybody has a tendency to push the limits of "how far can you shoot?"

The layout is generally open and what you might call "flat", even though I've seen some runways that were 2% grade. A hot day 5.5' above the surface can be a bad spot for a gun or reflector. We always set our control points around 400' apart and ran good levels through them. Some of them we never used, but it's always nice to have an undisturbed BM somewhere handy when a contractor starts squeelin'.

Your stake material would probably depend on the base material and whatever the contractor liked. We always used wood.

Set some good control and have fun.

Beware of high voltage buried power when setting control. USA will not mark these utilities. Airports tend to have a lot of UG power.

Nobody marks underground anything here. I recently posted that I did an accident site survey where a surveyor had his foot blown off from a low power cable. And about 15 years ago a surveyor was killed by a low power line.

So, yes I will be careful, Thanks.

Since I work for an Airport, you should most certainly get a level, perferably a digital level and here is why; FAA acceptance criteria. For taxiway and runways, actually anything that is an Airport Improvement Project (AIP) whcih has FAA funds, FAA acceptance criteria must be met. The smoothness tolerance for each lift is approximately 3/8" from a 16' straight edge, if this is not the work must be redone. Also for the finish grades, they may not exceed 1/2". This information can be found in AC 150/5300-10F. Also, it is good to review AC 150/5300-13A to understand the design criteria.

AC 13A

http://www.faa.gov/airports/resources/advisory_circulars/index.cfm/go/document.current/documentNumber/150_5300-13

AC 10F

http://www.faa.gov/airports/resources/advisory_circulars/index.cfm/go/document.current/documentnumber/150_5370-10

Plus, if a stupid pilot crashes an Airplane you may be questioned by the NTSB and FBI about layout proceedures of all the new NAVAIDS and striping that was laid out and if it meets this acceptance criteria! Which it all did (frustrated rant)

Edit*
According to 10F the Airport must provide you with control or some basis of control. We have adjusted control points throughout the Airfield that have been leveled through and we do some resection for layout, but we always use a 3 point rection. The AC 10F specifies that all hubs must be eventually be pulled, but wood hub works well. Make sure you check them often, because if the Airport is picky about following procedure, it may come back to the grades you set.

I hope this helps and if you have questions, my contact info should be good.

Thank you,

Brad Luken, LS
_{(AZ, CA, NV & OR}

You should convince them to invest in one of these then you manage the control, data and setups. Your elbows will thank me.

[flash width=560 height=315]//www.youtube.com/v/zHNex9nyeXk?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0[/flash]

For the expansion of one of our runways (10R) the contractor used machine guidance and it worked really well, if the guys on the ground were checking grades as often as they should have been with their level. On the runway and blast pad almost 50% of the grades exceeded the 1/2" acceptance criteria.

Brad Luken, LS
_{(AZ, CA NV & OR)}

Kind of a surprise to see the inspector drag out that 16' straight edge. Get good vertical and horizontal control on both sides of whatever you are staking and check both sides before you set anything for the contractor. Ripping out a lift and replacing it is expensive, especially since they will be using a very high strength mix and compaction specifications that is regularly and randomly checked, Contractor would rather have the surveyor pay the cost of replacement so CYA.
jud

You won't be able to leave anything sticking up above ground within some distance off the runway, the last one I worked on was 200 ft. So your reflectors would have to be really low. That is if its an active runway, my job was a resurface.

Railroad spikes work really well for blue tops if the ground is hard and the grade is close, and they arent using machine control. Paint the top orange and stick a flag by it.

> Railroad spikes work really well for blue tops if the ground is hard and the grade is close, and they aren't using machine control.
Machine control really is the way to go on an airport runway. I'd be surprised if a contractor attempted to go without it today. But that final lift of subgrade needs to be laid out with a TS (C/F painted on the ground), and the final lift of asphalt with a level.

Thanks for all the good advice. I'll definitely be getting a level. I'm thinking of a Leica 150 or 150M.
This will fortunately be working with the best of the highway contractors that I have worked with here. Even so, the normal standards are very low. Machine operators generally don't know or care what the markings on the grade stakes mean. They know how to build a road. The design plans are poor and the supervisors routinely have to redesign things by eyeball engineering, no one ever as-builts anything, so why should anybody care?
Of course the airport was built properly so it can be done. I expect this will be a challenge for all of us. This might be a test to see if a local contractor can work at this level.

Larry,

I'm assuming there is Federal money involved, unless it is a private strip. Do yourself a favor and read up on all the FAA specs for clearances, slopes and transitions etc., then read all the Contract Specs. You might wind up being the smartest man out there.

Get yourself a good strobe for the vehicle and if it's a controlled strip, purchase a transceiver to talk to the ATC. That's the guy that sits in the tower and has very little hearing and absolutely no sense of humor.

good luck

Surprising to see how fast and far a crew can scatter when they look up and see a C-5 with it's tail feathers down about to land on them. What was going on was the C-5 was practicing some form of electronic guided approaches with no intention of landing, the guy with the radio thought it would be funny not to pass the tower warning and explanation on to the crew. I flew across the Pacific on those things and they were big, but the one making that approach was bigger and growing ever second. If I remember right, the guy on the radio was soon looking for work elsewhere, I was running the crew but not doing the hiring or firing or he would have started his job search right there while he was walking back to town.
jud

Correction, I flew in the C-141 out of Cam-ron Bay, RVN to Anchorage in Sept 68, not the C-5.
jud

I did some work at a local airport about twenty years ago. Close to the end of the work, I was driving along the edge of a runway to set up a backsite. I was so worried about a plane either landing or taking off that I failed to watch ground and took out several runway lights.

John Harmon

Bet you were remembered by a lot of people at that airport. Your head bettered be on a swivel anywhere on an airport, radio contact with the tower or not, even on a closed runway someone might not get the word, It was a closed runway I was talking about above. Kind of fun getting out there at daylight and most of the final lift is down, find out how fast you rig can go and not a bump.
jud

I worked on a job at Vandenberg AFB in the mid-80s, when they were still thinking about landing the shuttle there (or maybe it was for an emergency alternate landing site, don't recall). We were working at the end of the runway, and even though the tower had sterilized the first 1,000 feet of it, the KC-135 that was doing touch-and-goes looked so close that I think I could have touched it's belly with the 25' fiberglass rod we were using.

Aside from the massive appearance an aircraft like that presents at close range, the most memorable -- and kind of scary -- thing about it was the extent to which it yawed back and forth as it passed overhead. It looked like it was barely under control, but maybe that was due to the experience level of the pilot who was practicing.

We weren't looking, one glance and if the pilot was looking, all he would have seen was elbows and A H's.
jud

Couple ideas anyway.

I would try to get fixed points and attach actual prisms rather than sticky targets just because it is nice to be able to point the glass in different directions and use atr instead of manually.

Run the level over control and as a check but I do not think you need to level every pinline, just like many things it is not the last half a hundredth that gets you but the tenths and feet that can cause problems.

I like cotton spindles for pinline but only if I can get the slipform crew to pull em out and save em for me, at 3 bucks a pop I prefer to re-use.

For preliminary grading you can just set a lath with a line on it for grade.

You will be going through a lot of wood so a stash spot on site like a container or a old van would be nice.

The advice on reading the specs was solid, documenting deviations from plan and discrepancies with a solid chain of communication is, as always, critical. The match line, as always is critical.