Australian Aviation — January 2018

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86 AUSTRALIAN AVIATION


by the Jan de Nul Group based in
Luxembourg. It spent several months
pumping sand on to the runway site
from a part of Moreton Bay free of
any environmental sensitivity. As
an indication of the scope of the
task, at one time the dredger was
pumping sand along a pipeline for an
unprecedented distance just short of
nine kilometres.
Coughlan recalled how the captain
of theCharles Darwin, on his last job
after 40 years in dredging, said he was
going to retire a happy man because
he never believed it possible to pump
the distance he pumped at Brisbane.
Fast forward to the end of 2017
and joint venture contractor Skyway
began the process of skimming off
4.5million cubic metres of sand
no longer required as part of the
compaction process.
“In the worst parts of the site we
predicted up to about three metres
of ground settlement and we’ve had
just under that. The centre part of the
runway we only predicted about half
a metre of settlement and we’ve had
about 350 to 400 millimetres. So all
the ground settlement is complete
and there is excess sand to come off,”
Coughlan said.
He added, wryly: “So far we have
about 500,000 cubic metres of that
off, so there is only about four million
to go!”
Speaking from London where he
was fronting a presentation on the
project at the Airport Expansion and
Improvements Conference, Coughlan
spoke of his pride at the success of the
reclamation stage and confidence in
confronting any future challenges as
his team looks forward to the runway
really starting to take shape.
“One of the things I’m really proud
of is that we do a lot of scenario
planning. We are continually doing
all the risk assessment and scenarios
for what could go wrong. Everything
is planned out, so if suddenly we
find something we will have already
contemplated that as a scenario and
will implement ‘Plan B’. So it goes very
smoothly.
“You could call me very
conservative. The last thing a
contractor wants is uncertainty in any
given situation.”
Cast ahead to the remainder of
2018 and we are back in the territory
of mind-boggling numbers. With
machinery in place, paving trials will
begin reliant on the blending of fine
crushed rock from an initial 100,000
tonne stockpile. Subsequently, a
staggering 1.2 million tonnes of fine


crushed rock will be required to feed
an onsite production line making the
different pavement layers and concrete
mixtures.
The result, according to official
BAC statistics, will be 100,000 tonnes
of aircraft grade asphalt, mainly for
the runway, and 380,000 tonnes of
concrete.
The schedule could see paving trials
complete by late April or early May
at which point, as Coughlan put it,
“it’s on. We start actually building the
runway.”
By November 2018 he believes
there will be sufficient visual clues
to the new runway to underpin a
significant project milestone: the
renaming of the existing main runway

as 01 Right and 19 Left to negate any
pilot confusion.
Coughlan explained: “One of
the learnings from other airport
developments is that when a new
parallel runway starts to take shape it
can be confusing to a pilot lining up,
say, eight to 10 nautical miles out.
“So we already have it in place with
Airservices Australia to rename that
existing runway well ahead of the
project completion.”
The existing 1,700 x 30 metre
cross runway 14/32 will be closed and
converted into a taxiway, principally
to link the current general aviation,
regional freight and Royal Flying
Doctor Service facilities to the new
runway via a left taxi or the existing
runway by taxiing right.
New runway construction should
be complete by the end of 2019
and will be followed by detailed
commissioning over about three
months to prove the integrity of
ground lighting (about 2,000 runway
and taxiway lights and 40 kilometres
of electrical wiring), navigation aids,
and control tower monitoring.
Foresight in the planning of
Brisbane Airport in the ’70s and ’80s
as a much-needed replacement for
the original facility at nearby Eagle
Farm included the 360-degree control
tower that stands as a significant
landmark for anyone approaching
the terminals by road. The vision was
always for an airport with parallel
runways and, according to Coughlan,
the control tower fitout included space
to duplicate the consoles catering for
current airside operations.
He says that there will be huge
logistical benefit in widely spaced
parallel runways (they are two
kilometres apart): “They will operate
as independent runways. There will
be no crossovers in the air so we can

The dredger Charles Darwin
spent several months pumping
sand onto the runway site.
BRISBANE AIRPORT

Artist’s impression of the new
Dryandra Road underpass to be
built beneath taxiways as part
of the parallel runway project.
BRISBANE AIRPORT

BNE-feat

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