HPR Media Services

David Kolasa and the maintenance crews at Metro use a rugged fleet of heavy-duty snow-clearing machines to keep the runways clear and safe in winter.

For schoolchildren, a snow day means a day of rest and relaxation. But not for the maintenance crews at Detroit Metropolitan Airport.

When the white stuff begins to fall, a veritable army of trucks and plows work around the clock to keep the 10th largest airport in the nation running smoothly, and they have yet to fail at their mission.

“When we receive a weather report that snow is expected we begin planning up to 36 hours in advance on just what we will need,” said David Kolasa, deputy director the maintenance for the Wayne County Airport Authority, which runs Metro.

“We track the storm and monitor runway temperatures and get the equipment ready.”

And, when it comes to keeping the runways clear, the work begins to add up quickly.

“If you were to take all the pavement on our longest runway and make a single highway lane out of it, the road would reach from downtown Detroit out to Ann Arbor,” Kolasa said. “We are able to clear all six runways and the needed taxi ways in about three hours, and if the snow is still coming down we start all over again.”

As with any undertaking involving large numbers of people and equipment, the keys to getting the job done are commitment and communication.

“First off, I couldn’t do the job if my team and the equipment repair crews were not so devoted,” Kolasa said. “These people believe in the job they do and are here when we need them.”

In a massive snowstorm that created a mad panic for the airlines some years ago, a large number of airline workers were not able to make it to Metro, but the crews of the maintenance division were on hand, no questions asked.

The Metro snow-clearing artillery includes six of the highly versatile Vammas plows.

“Some of the airlines had 50 percent of their people not able to get to the airport, but only two of my workers weren’t here, and one of them was at the hospital with his wife who was having a baby.”

When it comes to doing the job, Kolasa said each of the six runways, one of which reach out to 12,000-feet, can be cleared in 30 minutes. And this begins when there is an 1/8-inch or more snow on the ground.

To do the job, crews assemble an impressive array of equipment, and when they hit the runways, they hit them hard and fast.

Up to 25 pieces of snow-clearing equipment will take over a runway for the 30-minute cleanup job.

“We coordinate with the tower, close a runway and begin to clear it,” Kolasa said.

When the job begins, the massive collection of equipment will clear the runway at speeds up to 40 mph, running in a convoy down the concrete ribbon.

First in line are the plows that can take the snow down to nearly pavement level, pushing it into a single row down the 200-foot-wide runway.

The high-speed plows clear a 28-foot-wide path down the full length of the runway, starting with a strip following the centerline on the pavement.

Then massive snow blowers, each capable of throwing up to 6,000 tons of snow an hour, shoot the collected mass up to 150 feet out into the fields surrounding the runways. Sweepers then clean the remaining snow down to the pavement and if needed special trucks apply traction sand or liquid deicers are applied to the surface.

But even at this point the runway is not ready to be declared open. First, a specialized vehicle loaded with electronics makes a series of runs up and down the surface testing the traction of the pavement. Readings must meet strict Federal Aviation Administration guidelines before aircraft will be allowed to land.

“Our timing is such that when we finish, an aircraft is on its 20-mile approach and ready to land,” Kolasa said, “always within 30-minutes.”

When one surface is completed, then it is on to the remaining runways.

“By rotating which runway we are clearing, the airport can remain open in the worse of conditions.”

Doing a job this big can keep workers on the airfield continuously throughout their 12-hour shift. Food is brought out to the workers on the airfield along with stops to shuttle them back for necessary breaks.

Work this accurate demands a level of training that allows crews to be ready when the snow comes, and to do this drivers remain in top-notch readiness through the use of a 3-D simulator.

“The computer simulator exactly recreates the layout of the airport,” Kolasa said. “The crews then can drive and clear the airport between storms.”

And not only is new training being introduced each year, but so is equipment.

Recently added to the host of hardware were six Vammas snow-cleaning machines, which do the job of three different machines.

Each of the units not only has a 20-foot blade on the front for plowing, but they also incorporate a 16-foot rotating brush and a high-velocity blower system.

Once the runways are completed crews tackle the taxiways while other crews are clearing the road within the airport.

The job the crews do at the airport has been recognized by a variety of organizations that note superior airport operations.

In 2003 the Colonel Bernt Balchen-Post Award was presented to the Willow Run Airport crews.

Balchen was a highly decorated member of the U.S. Army Air Corps in World War II who specialized in artic operations.

To non-pilots, the award may hold little meaning. But to the aviation community, it is one of the highest honors an airport can receive for excellence in winter operations.

This is the third time the airports had received the award, the first time being in 1981 and then again in 1995.

Metro Airport crews have received the special mention award for excellence in airport snow removal in 1996-1997 and 2000-2001.

Hefty list of equipment in snow artillery

Each year, keeping the runways and the airport itself open requires a large number of machines and consumes a huge amount of supplies over an enormous area.

The airport itself covers 32 million square feet, with 10.34 million square feet being taken up by the six runways.

Just tracking the weather involves a large amount of advanced computer equipment.

Individual sensors in a runway are tied to a computer system and the surface temperature of that runway is reported over a 24-hour period.

The weather itself is monitored through the National Weather Service station at the airport along with information provided by private weather forecasting firms.

When you put it all together, the saying of airport workers that the facility is more like a small city, takes on a new meaning.

Equipment and supplies:

• Five OshKosh snow blower trucks
• Five OshKosh sweeper trucks
• Six Vammas plow/blower/sweeper trucks
• 15 Walters twin high-speed snow dozers
• 13 snow blowers – 5,000 – 6,000 tons per hour capacity
• 9 sweepers ranging up to 18-feet in width
• Eight sand spreaders
• Four Batts runway de-icers
• Two traction-monitoring vehicles

Once the runways are cleared, traction sand, runway deicer or both are applied to the surface. Each year the airport uses:

• 375,000 gallons of runway deicer (potassium acetate)
• 8,000 tons specially FAA approved traction sand
• 15 metric tons ice melt (sodium acetate)

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