In the summer of 2021, for the first time in US history, a modern military aircraft landed on a
US public highway designed only for automobiles. Four A-10 Warthogs and two C-146 Wolfhounds landed
and then departed from Michigan Highway 32. But that wasn’t the most impressive part.
The organizers somehow managed to find a smooth strip of road in Michigan, free of potholes!
These highway landings were a part of Exercise Northern Strike 21,
and they were performed to test as a backup plan.
One of the effective tactics of war is to bombard your enemy’s airfields,
which not only can hinder counter attacks by the Air Force, but it can also disrupt the military
supply chains that are dependent on the Air Force’s cargo planes. These massive airplanes
can air drop anything from supplies and Humvees, to delivering helicopters anywhere in the world.
Of course, losing the ability to operate airplanes also has a huge psychological impact.
This is why these highway landings were being performed for the first time in the United States,
but this wasn’t the first time that highways have been utilized as backup airstrips.
During the Cold War, in the fear that Soviets may bomb and destroy existing
air bases in Europe, NATO conducted a military exercise known as “Highway 84”,
where they turned a section of the Autobahn in Germany into a landing strip.
The idea was to rapidly convert pre-defined sections of road into a serviceable strip.
A temporary air traffic control tower was set up to facilitate the landing,
servicing , and take-off of 370 various airplanes – anything from
smaller fighter and ground attack airplanes, to massive fully loaded cargo planes.
Of course, with the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, they never had
to use the autobahn as an operational runway. But this is currently happening in Ukraine,
or did happen, if the war is over at the time that you are watching this video.
Ukrainian airplanes have been observed landing and taking off from roads. It’s a lucky coincidence
that during the 2 years leading up to the 2022 Russian invasion, Ukraine upgraded and built
more than 8,700 miles of roads under what’s known as the Large Construction national program.
But if an airfield was in fact bombed, the first step in the recovery process
is not to get the construction crew out right away to start repairing the damage.
This is in fact one of the early steps in getting the runways operational again.
So what are those? Those are explosive time fuses, and yes, the guy is swinging them
before getting them set up on this airfield. These explosives are in fact going to help rebuild an
already-bombarded airfield, in the most American way, by exploding the explosives away!
After an attack, there could be unexploded ordnance and other hazards present in the
airfield. Typically, the Explosive Ordnance Disposal team or EOD is the
one in charge of removing and discarding any explosives that may have been left behind.
I must say, these guys have an interesting way of making their problems disappear!
Of course you want to be quite far from that explosion,
because you never know where things are gonna end up!
The thing is, collecting unexploded ordnance is a time consuming task – not suitable for an
airfield that has been hit and needs to be repaired as soon as possible.
The solution to this, is Rapid Explosive Hazard Mitigation or REHM.
The first step for REHM is to clear large swaths of ordnance quickly. This is done
with the help of heavy equipment. To accomplish this, industrial equipment platforms are combined
with EOD attachments. I’m not gonna lie, these machines look kinda funky. I couldn’t find their
actual names, so I took the liberty of giving them some nicknames. This is the little scruffy.
That … is the “ordinance-o-saurus”, always hungry for a shell! This is the honorable “I suck bombs”,
and my favorite, the “not my problem” blower, which just … pushes the bombs away for other
machines to collect them! Given the risks involved, some of this equipment can be
remotely operated to keep the personnel safe in case of an unexpected explosion.
After the remote mass mechanical clearance has collected what they could,
anything left behind needs to be neutralized. This is done with
the help of small explosives to target small ordnance that cannot be manually dealt with.
There are 4 components for this setup: The igniter, the safety fuse, the detonator,
and the explosive charge. To create a time fuse, the igniter is attached to
one end of the safety fuse, with the detonator attached to the other end.
Once a sufficient number of these time fuses have been assembled, all team members, except for the
team leader, are equipped with time fuse setups that are placed around their necks prior to the
start of the walk. Some team members like to swing them around to get them straightened out.
The team then strolls down the runway, looking for unexploded ordnance.
Upon reaching any hazard, team members simply pull the igniter, which sets off the safety fuse.
They then insert the detonator into the explosive charge and place it close to, but not touching,
the ordnance. This allows the REHM team to quickly neutralize the area before the repair
team comes on site to do their work. It’s worth noting that unlike traditional
explosive ordnance disposal, REHM is fairly straightforward. A person just needs to take
a five-day course, and attend refresher training every six months in order to remain certified.
This allows non-EOD personnel to be quickly trained to perform explosive
operations in order to supplement response capabilities during wartime recovery.
With the explosives out of the way, it’s time for the RADR team to come in.
The Rapid Airfield Damage Repair team, also known as RADR, is in charge of getting an
airfield back to a fully functional state after a major airfield has been attacked.
Not having to worry about unexploded explosives, a team comes in first to remove any debris from
the site. Once that’s done, they mark the areas that require to be fixed
and then begin cutting the damaged area around each crater using a massive diamond saw.
Each section is broken into pieces using a bayonet breaker.
Then all the debris is removed from the site. The excavated areas are backfilled using
various materials, including crushed limestone, and then are packed.
A lightweight deflectometer could be used afterward to ensure the
backfill has been properly packed. Finally, a cap is added on top.
This could be done by pouring a rapid setting concrete on top of the backfill.
Only 2 hours after the concrete sets, aircraft can resume operating over it.
Another option is to use a fiber-reinforced polymer matting system, which is in turn
secured to the ground. In either scenario, the repair is load tested to ensure it can
handle the appropriate amount of pressure before the airfield can resume operation.
The repaired section can handle 9000 psi, which will accommodate about 3000 airplane runs that
will come through this airfield. The entire RADR process can be performed on a single crater in
about 3.5 hours, and the entire airfield operating surfaces could be fixed in under 7 hours.
All this said, there has been some criticism about these training exercises not being
realistic enough, because bombs would create much larger craters than these. A realistic
training scenario for the RADR team, would be to fix the craters on the streets of Detroit!