Im going to post this here just because I'm not sure where else to post it.



Basically here's the deal.
Our club field is an old landfill.
When I joined the club in the early 2000's, it was a grass runway with lots of cracks and dips.
It would pretty much rip the gear off a 40 sized trainer.

After a few years of heated debate, and electing a younger president into the club, we finally managed to get a petromat runway put down after realizing that the grass situation would never get better because of lack of water supply at the field.

After getting the petromat put down, suddenly the club numbers grew 3 times it's size in less that 6 months.

3 years later now, the young president is gone, the petromat is showing some age and we have some problems with the ground under the petromat. From the heat of the summer, cracks are opening and we are losing soil underneath.
This causes a hazard when people walk onto the runway and take off runs can become an adventure.

Last night at the club meeting they have decided to pull up part of the runway to plant grass again
Leaving a small strip of petromat, which im sure they will find a reason to get rid of soon enough.

We will only go back to the crappy runway we had in the past if we do this, and basically the jet guys will be done there.

My question is.....are any of you guys familiar with petromat runways on landfills?
Is there anything that can be done to the soil and loam under the runway?

They are in the mind set of, if we have to pull it up to lay more loam down, we might as well not put it back again.

Looking for a solution hopefully to save the runway.

Call the petromat guys and ask them this question IMMEDIATELY! There is no chance you are the first to have come across this, and they will likely have an answer for you.

Shok,
I looked at this stuff for my own runway on a piece of property I bought. As I understand it. this stuff was never meant to be permenant, and after it starts to degrade the soil will wash. What you really have to do is to put down a good foundation and get someone with heavy equipment who is willing to take the time to work the dirt down, pack it firmly and get it good and level. I had many loads of top soil hauled in, and was told that sand needed to be put down before the Petromat. When I talked to the Petromat dealer he told me this stuff was designed to go down prior to paving, and that was what is was designed for, when I told him what I wanted to do with it, he said he figured it would only last 7-8 years at the best.
Maybe you could talk your people into reworking the runway and adding a base of dirt or top soil if they insist on grass. With a little work the grass sould be as good as the Petromat, look at Mac Hodges place down in Georgia, it is awesome and you could fly anything off of it. I managed to find a golf green reel mower at an affordable price that I plan on keeping my runway trimmed with. You can cut the grass down to 1/8 inch, that is like Astroturf, but the ground needs to be prepped beforehad. good luck, sounds like you jet guys are the minority in your club, and you may lose out.
Tommy

Ronnie, one of the fields I fly on uses petromat.
it is on landfill property as well. well actually we are on
80 acres of buffer to the landfill. the field area originally
was laser leveled and graded flat. the soil is part clay, sandy
loam.

then a layer of decomposed granite graded out and smooted, then
the petromat. we actually put the felt stuff down first, then the petromat
over that. the winds do mess with it, and we have to keep up with any
tears. kinda like golfing................replace your divets

we edge glued the seams as well, and use the metal staples. we have
had a couple jets fly off our field, but its mainly large IMAC planes, and my
giant warbirds.

as far as the soil below, it would be good to spray a pre-emergent first.
we sprayed the soil, and then the gravel on top, the felt and petromat.
dont really have much of a weed or grass problem at all coming thru

I am heading out to our landfill flying site to do work. We have ripples and stone in our field. We are going to cut the humps down and fill with sand to level the field. The grass will grow through the sand and we should be fine. Just a thought.