West Chester County Airport Rehabilitation of Runway 16-34

Arora Engineers (Arora) provided engineering services to the Michael Baker/LiRO Group joint venture (JV) team for the rehabilitation of Runway 16-34 at Westchester County Airport. This complex rehabilitation project involved repaving more than 1 Million SF of the airport’s primary runway and associated connector taxiways with 50,000 tons of bituminous hot-mix asphalt and installation of a new Runway Lighting System and Precision Approach Path Indicator Navigational Aid.

Arora was responsible for airfield ground lighting design to progress the existing 90% contract documents to bid submission.

SCOPE OF SERVICES INCLUDED:

Arora coordinated with the project team to facilitate a complete design, with efforts including the following:

Field Investigation & Equipment Analysis: Arora provided a redline markup of the field survey markups and photos of applicable electrical equipment.

Drawings and Specifications: Specific design elements included:

Airfield Lighting – Demolition and proposed layout of the runway centerline lights, runway end lights, runway touchdown zone lights, and taxiway edge lights within the work limits. Arora provided QA/QC and final design for these light fixtures locations previously completed by the prime, and advanced the installation details and series circuit distribution requirements for these airfield lighting systems.
Underground Electrical and Communications Distribution Systems – Arora reviewed and provided necessary adjustments for the lightning protection system and underground distribution for the airfield lighting systems, ensuring they were in accordance with FAA AC 150-5340-30 (latest edition) for junction base cans, conduit, and ductbank systems within the project limits. Conflicts were indicated and distributed to the Prime for incorporation within the area plans.
Navigational Aids – A new LED voltage driven Precision Approach Path Indicator (PAPI) system was requested by the Airport on the 16-End of Runway 16-34. Arora reviewed the PAPI layout, siting, and power distribution, to confirm conformance with FAA advisory circular 150/5340-30J. Arora provided design for replacement of the Runway End Identifier Lights (REILs) on the 34-End of Runway 16-34 in conformance with FAA advisory circular 150/5340-30J. Two (2) existing incandescent Wind cones were replaced with LED Wind cones on their existing foundations. Arora provided necessary power requirements to these Wind cones.
Technical Specifications – Arora reviewed the 90% specifications and provided necessary modifications.
Design Calculations – All calculations performed were documented and submitted for record purposes.
Contract Documents – Drawings were reviewed and modified to ensure design intent met FAA requirements. Arora completed light fixture details, navigational aid details, and underground distribution details. Final submission of the contract documents were submitted in AutoCAD and PDF formats.
Construction Safety and Phasing Plan – Arora reviewed the phasing plans for temporary lighting circuitry requirements.
Bid and Procurement Support – Prepared and submitted Addendum drawings and addendum narrative to the Prime during procurement.
Estimate of Probable Construction Costs – Arora included cross-reference of quantity take offs for each respective electrical bid item.

Arora provided construction administration services in support of the Runway 16-34 Rehabilitation project. Runway 16-34 was originally scheduled for rehabilitation in the summer of 2020, however, the outbreak of COVID-19 allowed the JV team to completely redevelop the construction phasing plan and construction schedule to expedite the completion of the project to earlier in the year while air traffic was greatly reduced. This allowed construction to be completed in just three weeks on a fully closed runway, rather than the planned three months of nighttime-only construction. The result was higher quality construction, reduced construction costs, no operational impacts to the airport or airlines, and increased safety during construction – all on an aggressive schedule.

Arora’s construction phase services included: progress meetings, change orders and field orders, electrical shop drawings, RFI’s, record documents, and a substantial completion site visit. The Arora team was praised by the Project Manager for quick turnaround responses to submittal reviews, RFI’s, and general trouble shooting and engineering solutions provided during the expedited construction.