Wright-Patterson’s main runway reopened this week after a $7.8 million repaving project, according to the Air Force.
Crews repaved 10,000 feet of the 12,600-foot runway and improved taxiways and aircraft parking ramps, according to base spokesman William Hancock.
The work took the runway out of commission since mid-June. Air crews relied on an adjacent 7,000-square-foot airstrip next to the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force.
The project’s completion will allow the base to “to support almost every aircraft type in the United States Air Force’s inventory,” Capt. Miles-Tyson Blocker, airfield operations flight commander, said in an email. “It is a great feeling to alleviate the operational restrictions that come with using our smaller 7,000-foot secondary runway.”
The main runway was last repaved in 1984. The age and condition of the runway created the potential for foreign object debris damage, the base said.
John R. Jurgensen Co. of Cincinnati was the prime contractor.