The contractors who worked on the shifting and extension of Runway 5-23 last year are back, making some small necessary corrections at Freeman Municipal Airport in Seymour.
The runway project was pretty much wrapped up last year, but there were a few things they still needed to do, said Katie England, the airport’s representative with Butler, Fairman and Seufert Inc. engineering firm in Indianapolis.
"The pavement marking and the punch list items are the last few things that need to be wrapped up before construction is done," she said during a recent Seymour Municipal Airport Authority meeting.
The project was needed to pave the way for construction of the future Burkart Boulevard south bypass, which will connect Burkart Boulevard on the east side of the city to Airport Road in Freeman Field on the west side.
"Basically, Runway 5-23, which reopened last October, needed to be shifted about 500 feet to make room for the Burkart Boulevard bypass," England said.
Authority President Brian Thompson said this started back when Mayor Craig Luedeman was in office.
"He said our options would be to either relocate Goecker’s, which is a private business, or move the runway," Thompson said. "The money looked pretty close to being the same either way, so Mayor Luedeman suggested we move the runway and then add a few more feet to it."
The modified runway used to be 5,500 feet, but it’s now 6,000 feet with magnetic headings of 5 and 23 degrees, northeast and southwest.
"This will make the airport more appealing to those searching for that certain length of runway," Thompson said.
The project ties in with efforts by Jackson County Industrial Development Corp. and the Seymour Redevelopment Commission to attract and retain business in Seymour and grow the community.
"It’s quite an achievement that the airport was able to partner with the city," England said. "So they’re getting done a project that if they had gone through the FAA would have taken 10 to 20 years, whereas working with the city has taken about six years."
In other airport news, Airplane Ride Day was a huge success this year despite extreme heat and an area-wide cellphone outage, which temporarily prevented the fuel pumps from being activated.
Larry Bothe, curator/treasurer of the Freeman Army Airfield Museum, said the fuel pump outage was a first.
"With the cellphone systems down, we couldn’t activate the pumps with a credit card," he said. "It was way more involved than unlocking the cabinet and throwing a couple of switches."
He said special codes have to be entered, and the airport office didn’t have them because it never has had the need to run on manual before, and they couldn’t call the contractor who maintains the pumps and had the codes.
"It finally got sorted out, but it took awhile," Bothe said. "Once the ability to pump fuel manually was established, airport personnel stayed until the last ride was over and all the planes were refueled."
Airport Manager Don Furlow is working on a procedure to be able to switch over to manual operation much more quickly should the need arise in the future.
There were about 30 ground volunteers helping with Airplane Ride Day on June 12.
"A dozen pilots and seven airplanes came together to take 286 people for an airplane ride," Bothe said. "We flew from 9:10 in the morning until just after 6 o’clock in the evening."
Bothe said when he arrived at the airport the morning of the event, the whole field was immaculate.
"The big white tent glistened in the morning sun, and all the grass was freshly mowed, and there wasn’t a piece of trash to be seen anywhere," he said. "What a great way to present our airport to the citizens of Seymour and surrounding counties."