Chapter 27. Re-paving a 75 year old runway.
What a surprise, I got an email from Luis Rodriguez he said he wanted to see me, and he was coming down to see his grandfather (in Morocco) over the 3-day weekend next month. I told him I had a trip planned for that weekend, I was flying (piloting) someone from Rabat to Accra Ghana, I asked Luis since he was now a licensed pilot if he wanted to ride along in the co-pilot seat of a rented Cessna Citation (2017 model). The trip took one day, we'd ride a taxi from Tangier to Tetouan, rent the jet, fly to Rabat (143 miles) to pick up someone from the US State Department (the US Ambassador to Morocco) and fly him to an important trade meeting in Ghana (1 hour 50 minutes, 1990 miles). We'd stay with the airplane at the airport for three hours, and then fly the Ambassador back to Rabat, then fly the plane to Tetouan and take a taxi home. It would cost him nothing but time, he could log it in his logbook, and meals-drinks are included free. He needed to wear business grade clothing; I told him I wore a simple black sport coat over a white shirt with a tie and black shoes and socks. Easy Breezy!
As far as security goes since I knew he was issued a pilot's license in Spain he was never convicted of a crime, other than perhaps expired parking meter fines. So security was not an issue but I ran my idea past the chief at the embassy if Luis could ride along, he needed to see a photo of his driver's license so I texted Luis to ask and in five minutes I got a reply with an image of his license, which I forwarded to the Embassy. He was quickly approved by the Chief and I formally invited him to co-pilot.
I promised Luis I would teach him how to pre-flight a Citation and submit an electronic flight plan. Since it was an official flight he could not discuss it with anyone, but he could log his hours in the right seat. We could wander around the little airport in Ghana and eat and look out the windows, etc. The only thing I kept secret from work was that while Stephen was in his meeting I hoped to have the co-pilot's dick in my mouth and learn his single biggest secret: how does he taste?
Luis is certified on the 172 and has never sat up front in a jet. He is used to a totally analog instrument panel and the instruments on the Citation are all on video screens just beyond the steering wheels. Luis has never been trained on instrument flight which is a whole new world from VFR licensure (VFR=Visual Flight Rules, meaning there are strict weather conditions that control when a VFR pilot may pilot an aircraft). This trip will be a huge list of firsts for him and could be rather stressful, it would also be fun.
Now that he was back from Texas and busy with his airport project Dan also did a lot of research on the 30 acre property and how it was used in WW2. The best information he could locate was the little airbase was the home of four to six Junkers JU-52 cargo planes with a wingspan almost as wide as the runway. It was a mid-size cargo plane during WW2 mostly for dropping paratroopers. This airstrip was for training air crews on those airplanes and how to fly and deliver a load of paratroop soldiers somewhere over North Africa in support of the Afrikakorp. The specific unit name in German was the Fallschirmjager, a paratroop branch of the German Luftwaffe, under the command of Kurt Student. Pilots arriving at Tangier for training already knew how to fly the JU-52, but they needed to learn the specifics of a fully loaded JU-52, navigation, and how to deploy a load of paratroopers in a sky full of similar aircraft also deploying parachute troops. They also learned basic repairs and aircraft maintenance. Even if the flight crew was just two men everyone had to be able to perform basic repairs and maintenance on the JU-52.
At the time (1941-43) Germany had a military force in Libya because Libya was controlled by Italy, so the German force (of 34k soldiers) was back-up on the southern flanks of the Italian Army. The air crews trained to drop paratroops under the command of Erwin Rommel at the tiny airbase that Dan purchased in 2019.
What Dan learned was they hid the airstrip with camouflage by day and that was why the runway was so small, the bare minimum for use in a combat situation. They probably also had mobile anti-aircraft guns somewhere on the property. Dan said he was going to buy a metal detector and go in search of spent ammo casings (brass).
They probably kept two JU-52s in the hangars and others tied down outside but covered with desert camo netting. Someone who lived nearby said he was told there are a lot of unexploded shells on the Atlas Mountains that were fired from (20mm 4-barrel) anti-aircraft guns on the little air base. One of the neighbors said they had desert bushes and trees in large pots with wheels they rolled onto the runway to disguise it. They unrolled large sheets of canvas painted to look like the desert ground over the runway when not actually in use. I thought it was a shame that the barracks building burnt down long ago, it probably contained interesting artifacts, like training posters and info about the JU-52. Dan found one picture of the airfield taken in 1941 with full camouflage deployed and he saw it was nearly impossible to see, even the hangar had fake trees and rocks painted on the roof.
Junkers was a large industrial company that started operating in 1895 (by Hugo Junkers) in Dessau Germany making steam boilers then got into metal aircraft manufacturing during WW1. The company merged with another firm and ceased to exist as a brand in 1969. Hugo died in 1935 at the age of 76 and fathered 12 children, so he was a very busy man, especially in bed. That story reminded me of another famous man (Ferdinand de Lesseps) who organized and financed construction of the Suez Canal (1869 at age 64), six months later he was married to a younger woman (21 years old) and also fathered twelve children. His last born child (in 1885) died in 1973.
Back in the 1880s age 64 was considered very elderly, today it is common to see people that age play tennis, running marathons, and attending college full-time.
A lot of stuff went on over the next five weeks, I spent most of my time-off helping my best friend with his airport project. He told me he already heard from two managers of a local drone competition group too.
During that time we selected a paving contractor and paid half the money up-front and signed the contract and next week Monday they'll begin removing the old runway pavement with a road grader and a backhoe. The Danville Airport was a 25 minute drive from the asphalt factory.
And let me correct something I said earlier I found out is incorrect, Morocco has two asphalt plants, one north, one south, not just one for the entire country. But they do have only one oil refinery and that is the source for the asphalt goo. It's like the last thing that comes out of crude oil in a distillation tower. They are in the process of enlarging the refinery and the oil well field to increase production.
Dan also purchased a used Toyota Tundra truck, 6-cylinder diesel engine. With a simple bench front seat it was not designed for hauling a wife and kids. It was a work truck but the original owner was bankrupt, the truck was a re-po with 41k miles. There was a plastic bed liner but the rear part of the body had some scratches and dings. And it also had a strong trailer hitch welded under the frame.
We never discussed our partnership but he reminded me I owned half the runway, he might buy me out some day after he starts making money. He actually had enough to pay for the runway himself but I think he more wanted my investment to help guarantee my involvement.
Six days later was `Runway Monday,' the day the old pavement starts to go bye bye forever. A lot of those tiny lizards and snakes on his property are going to die when all that heavy equipment arrives.
Dan explained how it started at 6am on Monday morning. First, the boss arrived in his truck and set up his surveying scope on a tripod at one end of the runway, then another guy walked to the far end with a long measuring tool and between the two of them they staked off the four corners of the runway bed. Next, they staked off ten foot widths. The boss said as far as he could see the runway was amazingly flat and level. The people who laid it out and did the original ground prep did a very good job. He said there was a constant variation in the old road bed of less than half an inch, which is better than most buildings have today, almost as good as the Great Pyramid in Egypt. They are going to use a laser to shoot a beam over the concrete roadbed to measure it for variations in height so they don't make any speed bumps in the runway.
In the distance on the main road (the one that exits off the N2 Freeway) he saw a large flatbed semi drive up and park, on the back sat a full size yellow road grader tightly chained down. They got ramps laid out and drove the grader off the trailer and down the street, up his driveway and up onto the old runway. They started at the far west end, lowered the blade and angled it toward the center and lowered it and started crawling down the runway scraping a deep gash that went all the way down to the original concrete roadbed. Dan said he saw sparks fly off the blade as it scraped the concrete roadbed. It kept going, plowing-up a pile of small black pebbles and a few remaining black sheets of original 1930s asphalt.
Once they got to the far end they had to turn the grader around and get the blade perfectly positioned at the far end, pressed to the concrete, and then they took off westbound pushing the other side of the runway up into the big pile that ran down the center.
Another large dump truck arrived with a trailer and a backhoe on back. He dropped that trailer on the main road (which is not paved) and drove the dump truck up near the runway while the grader slowly drove to the west end peeling up the old asphalt and adding it to the pile down the center. Another man unloaded the Case backhoe off the trailer and drove over and started scooping up the gravel and dumping it into the truck. That went on until the dump truck was full, he left for the asphalt plant.
By then they stopped for lunch and the entire crew disappeared but left all the heavy gear in place. An hour later they came back all happy and talkative and fired up their equipment, just in time for the dump truck to return empty from the asphalt plant.
They re-started their task, the backhoe scooped up gravel and dumped it in the dump truck and the road grader made his third and final pass down the center of the runway and pushed all that gravel over onto the far south side.
While driving the road grader back to the trailer they had to pause and improve the driveway so they used the grader to widen and flatten it for the asphalt machine which was very wide. He scraped up rocks from the desert (east of the hangar) and used the backhoe to pour them on the driveway after it was widened and flattened. Now it runs from the street nearly to the hangar. With the heavy equipment it took them like 19 minutes to make me an 18 foot wide compacted gravel driveway from the street almost to the hangar. Before they started it was two tire ruts with weeds growing down the middle and scraping your car doors on the way in and out. Now, two cars can pass each other without slowing! After it was improved they drove the grader out to the trailer and chained it down. They had to grade my driveway or the asphalt machine might not have made it to the runway!
Normally to re-pave a road they use a machine that grinds the old asphalt off the roadbed and dumps it into a truck following behind, but this pavement was so badly deteriorated they used a road grader instead. I asked about a wildfire but Dan said it rained too much for that to be an issue, but they kept a fire extinguisher on the ground nearby just in case.
Three guys stayed until 4pm scooping gravel into the dump truck. He almost 2/3 of it scooped when they ran out of time. They drove the 2nd dump truck onto the runway, it had the trailer for hauling the backhoe. Dan drove back to my place and described everything that happened and showed me photos he took with his cell. He said they should finish removing the old pavement tomorrow if the weather stays nice. He said there were several places where there was a thin layer of intact asphalt left on top of the concrete bed, so the original runway hadn't totally decayed yet, but it was close! He said he saw think slabs of ancient asphalt peel up off the concrete and get pushed off to the side by the road grader blade.
He said when the backhoe scooped up loads of pea gravel sometimes it loosened big chunks of asphalt too, it all went to the asphalt factory to be cleaned and re-processed. But the last load will stay here to become a three foot wide packed shoulder all the way around the new runway that will be the last thing they do.
I ordered Dan to take a shower. And while he was in the bathroom I made us dinner of a thick piece of chuck roast sliced in half and broiled in my countertop toaster oven with sliced mushrooms. I also baked two potatoes but mostly cooked them in the microwave and finished them in the bubbling hot juice from the roast.
After dinner we split a 6-pack and he thanked me for an excellent meal. We sat on the sofa (where we ate dinner too) and talked by candle light until 9pm then went to bed. He fell asleep first and nothing happened between us. Dan had a lot on his mind.
Dan got up early, like 0430 and got showered and changed into jeans and a button down long sleeve shirt and left at 5am for his airport. That early you can get there in about 22 minutes on the N2. In this country there are never highway patrol cars using speed radar, it does not exist in Morocco. The N2 is like a US Highway in the states, like US-30, a 4-lane divided highway with limited traffic lights. That is exactly what the N2 looks like.
You can actually take the N2 Bus but when you get off you'll have about a 1.6 mile hike to the airport driveway and almost another mile to the ATC building. Of course you don't want to do that when it's about 110 degrees outside, but that only happens a few times a year.
Dan was the first to arrive just as it was getting light outside. The crew boss arrived with his truck loaded with workers. After the crew left yesterday the dump truck returned to the site and the driver got a ride home, so they were all ready to go and started work at 0630am. It was scoop and dump while the guy in the truck tried to keep it in the best position for the backhoe. Dan said from watching them work they had a LOT of experience doing this work. Two guys used big wide coal shovels and brooms to clean up the roadbed as the line of gravel got shorter during the morning.
That morning a second dump truck arrived and between the two they had very little time when there wasn't an empty truck for hauling gravel. They stopped for lunch at 11am but only for 45 minutes then re-started and by 3:15pm the old pavement was gone and the roadbed was swept clean and ready for part-3. Most of the crew left but one dump truck full of pebbles stayed and so did the backhoe. All that stayed until 5pm were the boss and his surveyor guy and they staked out the runway with string and wood stakes. It definitely looked like they'd done this job hundreds of times, this was just another road to them. This runway was the size of a standard in-town three lane street in the USA with bicycle lanes on either side but no curbs.
I think the string served as a guide for the asphalt laying machine. It had a sensing arm that was the elevation setting for the finished pavement, but the string was like a uniform 28cm above the actual pavement. The machine self adjusted left-right, up-down based on the string. Since the runway was long they had to use portable string anchors on both ends which were placed by him using his surveyor scope (aka: Optical Theodolite).
That was when he dragged the ground radar box the entire length of the old runway bed to locate the thick part to mark at the LZ (landing zone).
At 4pm a tanker truck pulling a trailer arrived out on the main road, on the back was a familiar asphalt laying machine. They drove it off the trailer and parked it beside the runway while the tanker truck made three passes spraying tar on top of the old concrete bed. After the road bed was sprayed the entire crew left for the day. Dan drove back home and it was a repeat of last night. He said he was thrilled that he also had a greatly improved driveway now.
Let me explain some industry lingo: When a street is resurfaced with Blacktop that is usually called Asphalt or sometimes Asphalt Concrete. The tarry stuff that comes from the oil refinery is often called Bitumen. To improve laying speed and increase lifespan they add other chemicals in powder form to the mix, often those are minerals in a white powder form that come in 80lb lined paper bags. Sometimes they add powdered recycled rubber (which is a fluffy black powder). The mix is heated to around 330 degrees F and dumped in large trucks and hauled to the site and poured into the back of the laying machine while it is still steamy hot.
Dan explained how the boss radar scanned the concrete roadbed thickness, which looked like a very old concrete street they put asphalt on top of. The guy transferred the radar image into his computer and showed Dan how thick it was, this runway was designed for planes to only land (eastbound only) on the west end and take off heading eastbound. There should be no westbound landings except maybe by very lightweight aircraft, like the weight of a small car or large motorcycle. They spray painted marks on the ground near the runway so he could mark it once the new pavement was finished.
That evening I made Dan potatoes au-gratin with peas and chunks of ham steak, he said it was great, better than Hamburger Helper any day! I called him an asshole and we laughed. For cheese sauce I like to use melted Velveeta cubes which is available in Morocco, but Hamburger Helper does not exist here. You can pretty much make the same thing yourself cheaper/better at home. Dan commented once a while back after he started living here that if you went into an American grocery store and removed all the junk crap GMO processed convenience foods like helpers, instant meals, and most cereals, the alcohol, and pop the store is suddenly about 30% smaller and 100% healthier. I've heard if you import GMO crop seeds to Morocco you can actually get the firing squad, and I think it really happened back in the 1980s.
We showered but took turns, I was in the bathroom talking while he was in the shower. After that we went to bed rather early, 7:55pm and got up the next day at 5am but he only wanted a bowl of oatmeal and coffee. After he left I cooked myself eggs and toast. English muffins do not exist in Morocco, but you can easily make your own. There are kits to make your own in grocery stores here, just add water, knead, rise, and bake.
Dan told me breakfast was the most important meal of the day' I told him that was a marketing slogan from the 1930s to sell breakfast cereal, it was not a statement of fact, just like put an egg on it' was a marketing slogan by the Egg Board, prior to that nobody anywhere was asking for an egg on anything. But dumm people fall for marketing slogans all the time. I told him lunch was the most important meal of the day, not breakfast. While Dan ate I admitted I actually did not know what the American food terms: Hearty and Savory meant. The definitions online were vague and not concrete. When you are autistic you need concrete definitions for words.
He got there after the boss. They had the asphalt machine ready to go before the first load arrived at 6:55am. He backed the steamy dump-bed full of hot asphalt up and filled the machine. They double checked the settings and started laying asphalt. That machine moves slowly, like maybe 900 feet per hour. They tried to time it so they always had a dump truck of hot asphalt ready to dump all the time to keep the asphalt machine at one steady speed. After they had about 100 feet down one of their guys walked out to the main road and drove the roller/compacting machine off the trailer and onto the site and up onto the end of the runway and started compacting the hot asphalt. Dan took pictures and even texted me a couple photos, I could tell he was super excited.
He said one dump truck load filled the asphalt machine four times, then it left and the next truck got in position ahead of the machine. The guy running the machine said they had to adjust the speed of lying to match the interval between truck loads. He said if we were closer to the asphalt plant they could do one entire pass, 10 feet by 4800 feet in two hours, but they would run out of material so they had to slow it down so there was always a truck there to refill the machine. The continuous spread made for a flatter better longer lasting runway. He said it takes quite a while for the asphalt plant to heat and mix one load so the trucks waiting had quite a bit of time sitting waiting for the stuff to get up to temperature.
I gotta say something personal about Dan right here, and I really mean this: I love the fact that he is super mentally engaged in this project. I believe he rarely has an hour go by in his normal life where he doesn't spend maybe five minutes of every hour thinking about his 24 months in prison, constantly living in fear of attack. But something huge like this will help those memories fade and he will become more like his true self again. Underneath his fear based hetero exterior Daniel is a very sweet boy, very trustworthy and affectionate. There are not many people on Earth that I would take a bullet for, but Dan would be one of them. And I mean that literally. Living with Dan is sort of like owning the best dog you could imagine. He'll bring your shoes, fetch the newspaper off the driveway even in a heavy rain, bring you a beer. He's like the ultimate pet human boy! When it comes to hetero sex I think most women would rate him a 6 out of 10 on the sex skill scale. He's really lived a rather sheltered life. I think Jen would rate me an 8 of 10 in bed. And Dan is the hetero guy!
By lunch break they were almost down to the end of the runway and stopped while both trucks were gone. Those two loads would be all they would be able to do today. Tomorrow would be another long day for the crew.
By the time the last guy left both dump trucks were at the asphalt plant ready for the first two loads in the morning. The pavement machine was set up for the second pass tomorrow, starting when the first truck arrived. After they loaded the first truck he had a 25 minute drive to Danville then they could start spreading, so they wouldn't start the 2nd day of spreading asphalt until around 07:05. They only had like 200 feet left on the first pass which they would finish after they did pass #2. When the machine spreads asphalt and then the compactor rolls over it the thickness reduces by about 1/5th.
For dinner on this third night I made spaghetti with meat sauce and green beans and red wine.
That evening I could tell he was horny but distracted so I was more forceful and ordered him to come into the bathroom with me and strip naked. I sat on the toilet and had him stand in front of me and lean forward and put his hands on the wall and I blew him while he humped my face. As he took his clothes off I could see he had a wet spot on his undies because he was leaking due to excess sperm pressure. By the time he walked up to me he had a foot long string of pre-come swaying off the tip of his boner, he didn't even know it was there. Luckily I got all of it in my mouth, it tasted wonderful, just like mine.
I put baby oil on my hands and rubbed his nuts then slowly moved back and rubbed his butt cheeks and then into his crack, then I started finger massaging his bung hole and while my fingers were fully slicked, I started pressing one finger inside his butt. I've sort of done this before when he was drunk and he never stopped me but this time I had my finger half-inside his rectum and massaged his pleasure spot and then he really started humping harder and moaning and came suddenly, like it was a surprise to him. Both of us were caught off guard and I got sprayed from my hair to my feet. He spurt a couple ropes that hit my thighs but it was like a moderate rain for about 6 seconds.
Dan stepped back and we watched his dick drip on the bathroom tile floor, it looked amazing. He had an excited smile on his face like I never saw before, almost like a 12 year old boy after his very first orgasm when he wanted to tell the world because he was totally thrilled.
I stood up and he kissed me on the mouth for quite a while for him, maybe 12 seconds. Then we took another shower and he cleaned all his semen off me, which was nice. I got paper towels and cleaned the floor and the sink cabinet and below the toilet paper holder too.
Today started the same as yesterday. He doesn't understand why I don't trust GMO food, but none of that shit is in stores here, but all natural puffed rice cereal without sugar is here, the same snap crackle and pop without the GMO and sugar. But you can add your own sugar. I got Dan to add sliced fruit instead because puffed rice is super boring. He arrived earlier than yesterday and said they stood around waiting on the first load of asphalt which arrived at 0712am. The machine was in place and everyone was ready, the guide strings were up and this was hopefully going to go a little faster than yesterday. They started the second pass and made it all the way to the other end (4800ft) by lunch time. The crew left for lunch while the boss set up the string to finish the first pass and moved the machine to finish the last little bit of the first pass after lunch. This crew does most of their work before noon.
By 1:30pm the first two passes were finished and compacted. The dump trucks were gone and they moved the machine to start the third pass early tomorrow morning. They left early and Dan took more photos to show me and he left early too. The manager also put marks on the 2nd pass for the line down the middle, one spray'd dot of paint every 300 feet, end to end.
Since Dan got home early we showered and went out for pizza but ate at home. That evening he asked me to blow him again so I did him in bed. That time he wanted to sit up in bed against the headboard and watch what I did. I think he actually sits there wondering how in the world I can spend so much time with his boner in my mouth or in my hand. If he'd ask me I'd tell him: I really really really really really enjoy doing it. I can hardly think of anything in life I enjoy more than having dick in my hand and doing whatever feels good to me with it. No matter what I say he still feels uncomfortable asking me to suck his dick, despite that I have told him how much fun it is so many times I cannot even estimate the number. I'm thrilled he finally took me seriously and started offering himself to me.
We went to sleep early. When I curled up with my second pillow, my hands and face smelled/tasted like Dan, which was wonderful.
The last day was supposed to be today if no equipment broke. It started just like yesterday, but their other truck was left at the asphalt plant under the spout so they would be loaded first and on the road earlier too. The truck arrived and they started laying asphalt at 0709am and worked non-stop to finish the last 10-foot wide pass without a break. Once they got to the end their smaller dump truck was there with one huge load they made of old pavement stones and with that and two guys with hand tools they spread out three foot gravel shoulders and compacted them with the roller machine.
They replaced the dump bed tailgate to one for this very purpose, it had a two foot opening so the truck drove along the runway, half on the runway and half on the ground. They lifted the bed and let the pea size rocks pour out the narrow opening and he drove the full length of the runway then repositioned and did one end, then got lined up for the other side until he drove the truck all the way around. Two men with rakes and shovels carefully spread the rocks and the guy with the compactor packed it down tightly. After that was done (it went pretty fast) they got the trailer on back and drove the backhoe on top and chained it down and left.
While that was going on they loaded the asphalt machine back onto the flatbed trailer and drove it away. It took them one hour to lay the shoulders and have the entire thing compacted. Then one guy stretched out a string down the center and they sprayed the white line down the middle. By 2:30pm all that remained were the boss and his truck as he dismantled the surveying equipment and the line sprayer and got ready to discuss money with Dan. First, he used a small laser and a small tripod and set it at one end of the white line then aimed it just above the pavement and with a tape measure they walked the entire length showing Daniel how much variation was in the surface of the runway from end to end by showing him the red laser dot only varied by half an inch the entire length. After that he packed everything away and they sat in his truck to discuss the charges.
A few nearby property owners walked over when they heard big engines. So Dan got to meet more of the neighbors. He asked how they got water and they all said they did the same thing he did: water truck and 13-liter plastic jugs refilled at the grocery store. Dan said by 1:45pm the audience of local people had grown to nearly twelve old men standing in the hangar watching the paving crew.
Dan and the boss sat in his truck and went over the paper and Dan paid him by check for the balance and then the crew chief drove off. They handed Dan a paper with instructions for his `New Driveway,' except it was in Arabic. It said basically to not touch it for three days (the timer starts after the compacting machine is finished at 3pm Thursday). Then light traffic is allowed on the 4th day (Monday), then full traffic on the 5th day (Tuesday). Before the man left Dan asked him for his best guess what year was the last time an airplane might have landed on this runway and after some silent thought he said maybe in the early 1990s. Then he asked if we did nothing to this runway but let it sit how long will it last as-is, the man said probably 2035 if there were no big earthquakes.
We drove over on Sunday in his motorhome to look at it because by then we were allowed to walk on it by then. And we also got buzzed by low flying aircraft. The pavement company guy said there are chemical changes going on inside the blacktop as it cools, so it needs to be left alone or crossslinks might be broken and weaken the pavement. He said it was sort of like vulcanizing rubber except in pavement it happens at a much slower pace due to the lower temperatures.
Dan made a printout of the runway markings page on Wikipedia how to mark the end of the runway temporarily but I suggested he not mark it in such a way as to indicate it was open, since the runway was half the normal width of any standard runway anywhere in the world, except for private property airports, like on farmer's fields. This runway was two steps better than landing on a rural road in Wyoming. Dan said in the airman's airport book they call these types of runways `PPR's, for Prior Permission Required for use. He said he will update that database next week with the specs and list it as a PPR.
There are standardized markings on runways worldwide. One of them shows the pilot from the air how wide the runway is, but a 30 foot runway is non-standard so there is no code for a 30ft wide runway! This is why we used the triangle because it clearly shows where the corners are, even a pilot in a plane passing overhead can see the dimensions because of the triangles. But it will get a standard TDZ marking so every pilot can see it from the air. (TDZ= touch-down zone, there your landing gear is supposed to first impact the runway).
Dan showed me where his RV will be parked, where his sewer hook-up pipe is, the water tank, half buried in the ground, and how the pump is inside the tank sitting in the bottom. He opened the door and showed off his rented Porta-Potty, he said its main user will be him since his sewage system was experimental he needed something that would always work. And he fully expected people with airplanes would land without permission and need to use the toilet. But he was going to be fully redneck about people cleaning up after themselves. People are used to pissing anywhere inside a Porta-Potty but this one won't be like that. It only gets cleaned every 60 days so he has to clean it himself.
I told him what he needed to get soon was a large wood picnic table kit, the kind with attached bench seating, and a charcoal grille, and maybe an umbrella or some kind of tent for shade. So he could talk business with lots of people outside in the fresh air. I told him not to cut costs on it, buy a good one because he's going to have a lot of hours on it, so don't buy cheap. We were there for almost two hours looking closely at the new pavement and the hangar and decided it was time to leave.
On the drive home we discussed something that would surely happen eventually, like an uninvited plane lands then cannot get restarted, but it's parked on Dan's runway. An uninvited plane makes an emergency landing because it is nearly out of fuel, cannot take off without fuel, but Dan has no fuel to sell, or he has fuel but the airplane owner has no means to pay. An airplane lands and crashes, on fire, with injured people, the fire threatens his motorhome too. Someone lands an airplane and hits a wild animal on the runway, says its Dan's fault and wants Dan to pay for repairs and medical bills.
He said he might park his Toyota truck on the runway to show pilots that it was not open. I told him to paint a big X in the runway too, two cans of white spray paint. One X at each end, which is the traditional universal marking for a closed runway. He said that would be too permanent. Maybe he could make an X out of white crepe paper and use rocks to keep it in place on the runway.
We talked airplanes all the way home, including how to land the Citation safely. My big concern was seeing the end of the runway at nearly 400mph. Plus there are tall weeds, cactus, and short trees growing only 50 feet beyond both ends of the runway that must be removed. If I am going to land the Citation there I'll need every inch of clearance out in front of the new runway because I'll be coming in hot and low, like an aircraft carrier landing without the arresting cables and the hook. I told Dan the neighbors to the west ain't going to be happy that day. He said he would try to make contact to let them know.
The ground west of the runway slopes down, but east of the runway it remains flat for another 2000 feet, well into the neighbor's property. But west of the runway, you go maybe 250 feet and hit the property line fence and by the time you get there you've lost about 20 feet in elevation. Dan said the property to the west is used for grazing cattle, same with the property to the south. I think he is going to cut down everything at both ends for at least 150 feet, probably more. All he needs is a shovel, an axe, a rake, and a weed eater. Speculating, I told Dan when I fly over he should have some road flares to wave in the air so I can see the end of the runway. He could stand at the end of the pavement, maybe ten feet to the side and wave them over his head while I approach and I'd rock the wings if I was going to try to land, no joke. He said he's never been that close to a jet in flight before, it sounded dangerous. I told him I was glad he understood the risk. I honestly don't think he understands how dangerous it'll be. Just one unanticipated gust of wind and my wing could instantly slice off his head. Maybe he should sit on the ground and hold the flares. He said he cannot lay the burning flares on his new runway because the fresh asphalt might catch on fire from the flares.
I also think he wants to start living there next week, he never said it but he seems to be working toward that goal. We called the office for my apartment complex to tell them his motorhome would be gone in a few days. I think it says something positive about Tangier and Morocco that his motorhome sat unguarded but locked in that guest parking lot for two weeks without being tampered with at all. There's a number of cities in the USA where it would have been broken into and set on fire.
On the drive home Dan asked about World Cup Soccer and I admitted I had no interest or knowledge of soccer. I know he played in middle school and his first year of high school but soccer and smoking don't mix so he quit........... soccer. It surprised me because he has a body that is perfect for soccer (lean and tall). I think he developed a real appreciation of nicotine in 8th grade but he met a girl who got him to quit in 10th grade because it made him smell bad. So in the battle of `nicotine v. pussy' the kitty won!
On Tuesday we both drove down to Danville early, before sunrise. I drove his truck (with his stuff in back) and he drove the motorhome. I parked near the edge of the hangar in the weeds while he carefully drove down the center of his new runway and over near the ATC building, turned around and backed up over the new sewer line, near the water tank and utility pole and stopped. I stood about 1000 feet away and watched, he waved so I turned to leave and called for a taxi ride back home.
Back at home I changed into work clothes and took the bus to my office and arrived half an hour late and clocked-in. My day was very busy, I missed seeing Daniel on the sofa across the tiny office but he called twice.
I even got a really weird phone call from the Vietnam Embassy in Washington DC asking how I arranged transport home for someone who died in Morocco that took a while to explain. I think I have become the leading US expert on shipping the dead. They had a citizen who died of natural causes in Tangier they wanted to fly home to Ho Chi Minh City and wanted to know how I did it since so many airlines refuse to carry a body in a box. The main problem is its super expensive and not covered by most life insurance plans. Somebody has to pay with a credit card but most people don't have a credit limit that high. Flying dead people is expensive because the box takes up a lot of space in the cargo hold and nothing can be stacked on top of it. It takes up the same volume as six college-dorm trunks and they require special handling (equipment and people and time) which is also expensive.
One week after he started living at the airport we did a video chat over our cells, it was still light out but the sun was just about set. So he showed me the area he cleared around the motorhome, he said my picnic table idea was great, it was going to happen soon but he needed to buy a shitload of hand tools first. And he needed several really long extension cords too.
He said he got buzzed by small airplanes today and both of them waved as they flew over. But straight down they cannot see anyone except the floor of the cockpit, but he waved back anyway. Suddenly it seemed like everyone in Morocco knows about the old German airfield. Dan said he found a store sort of like Harbor Freight in a nearby town and went there with his list for some essentials: hand saw, hammer, pry-bar, 4-foot level, cordless drill with bits, plumb bob, 50 ft chalk line with chalk, jig saw, circular saw, tape measures (one 16ft one 100 ft), a cheap laser pointer, and an axe with a long handle. He said the axe is for clearing the brush from both ends of the runway (and maybe for beheading snakes too). Dan said what he wants is something like Raid for snakes. Or maybe like Bear spray for snakes in an aerosol can. I told him to buy a pump type pellet rifle for snakes.
Dan said one of the planes flying overhead dropped something, it had a streamer on it so he could see it all the way to the ground. When he found it near the east property fence it was a tightly wrapped package of a hot glue gun and glue sticks, which he thought was cool as hell. People were actually tossing him little gift packages of useful stuff! How F-ing cool was that?!
For short term use he bought two rolls of party decoration crepe paper and made a large white X on both ends of the runway and used rocks to hold the white paper lines in place.
While we talked I was stretched out across the sofa with one hand down my shorts just thinking about his flesh and how good it would feel with his soft rubbery head gliding side to side across my lips right now.
We discussed killing snakes, I said to evict them. "Use a trap and move them elsewhere since they eat insects and lizards by the pound." I bought a snake book that covered northwest Africa so he could identify his slithering neighbors and leave the non-venomous ones alone. Dan is somewhat redneck when it comes to reptiles, like me he says the only good snake is a dead snake, and I agreed but they do eat bugs but the pound.
The Puff Adder is the most dangerous snake in his area and they're there because of his proximity to the mountains. The others are all vipers (Horned viper, Egyptian cobra, Moorish viper, and Carpet viper). The Puff Adder bite is lethal to humans 50% of the time even with treatment but its name sounds gay. He said he's not seen the gay snake yet but he has seen the Moorish Viper. He said a bite from them is like taking a huge dose of anti-clotting drugs, like Heparin. He said it is about the same size as a Texas Rattlesnake. And you can eat `em but it's not worth the effort, just like squirrel or small game fish.
Two days later he called again at dinner time to report that he painted a big white X across the east end of the runway, and he spent the rest of the time chopping down desert plants at the roots and piling them up on the remains of the old barracks building where he will burn them eventually, because if he doesn't burn them the wind will blow them back onto the runway. So the X on the east end was permanent but on the west end was temporary, made of paper and held in place by small rocks.
Note to readers: The east end of the runway had no support for the impact of a landing airplane unless it was very light weight, like an UltraLite class of airplane, which are often kits people built at home. Airplanes like Gyrocopters or ones that incorporated delta wings or parachutes, those would be fine landing from either direction, but they are not very commonly seen anywhere in the world.
The area where the barracks building stood is covered with small chunks of busted concrete, bricks, and rocks, there's remains of a building foundation too, about 30 ft wide and 100 feet long. When the wind stops early in the evening he's going to start small fires of the desert plants he's removing. He said he is clearing an area about 40 feet wide and 110 feet long extending from the west end of the runway. I think Dan started to realize how narrow a 30 foot wide runway really is, we started calling it Threading instead of Landing, as in Threading the Needle with an airplane going 90+ mph!
And after that clearing is done then he's going to clear the east end too. He also said next week he wants to buy a skidloader with the same buckets they had on the Case backhoe they used for the runway paving. There is a huge farm implement store about halfway to Rabat that has dozens of used skidloaders for sale, with free delivery.
Dan said the old septic system behind the ATC building still seems to be working fine but he still hasn't filled the tank, but its working fine. The septic system guy pointed out some trees and bushes to cut down that were growing over the evaporation field, so he already got them cut and dragged all the way over to the burn spot. He said he needs to buy some work gloves and rope because the cactus all have long needles.
He told me how he experimented with ways to shower on the cheap (to save water), here was his latest invention:
He bought three 100ft-rolls of garden hose and made an adapter so he could thread a shower nozzle and valve on the end of one. Next, he ran it across the ground to the tank, but the hose was like 70 feet too long so he coiled it up on the ground near the water tank. Then he ran the pump until water came out the far end, then shut off the pump.
He let it sit there full of water for an hour in the afternoon sun until the water inside was blazing hot. Then he got his towel and soap out and set them on a folding chair inside the ATC building beside where the old shower drain was, now just a flat concrete floor with a few round holes. He made some hooks on old bolts in the ceiling and hung the end of the hose with a valve from the ceiling. Then he stripped naked and ran to the tank and turned on the pump then ran back inside the building (maybe 40 feet away) and opened the valve and took a hot shower, with soap and shampoo but he kept the flow very low because he only has that one tank of water that has to last until his next delivery. They deliver up to 1000gal every month but charge by what he used. If he runs out early then it's too bad.
After the shower was done he closed the valve and ran, wet and naked to the tank to turn off the pump. So it worked! I said he could do the same thing with the motorhome shower and the same hose but he said that shower was tiny, smaller than the bathroom inside a passenger jet. The ATC building had big empty space but little privacy.
I laughed at the idea of him running around outside naked at his airport. He said he needed to get a pressure tank and pressure switch to control the pump. Maybe next week on that too, but it might turn into a big project. He also needed pipe wrenches and channel-lock pliers.
I reminded him to get plumbers tape, the white stuff on the blue roll.
During his first weekend at the airport I couldn't come down because I ended up working Saturday and Sunday at my office. He really wanted me to come and help him build the picnic table. But I couldn't go, I had work to do.
He said he's met several more locals, they're all old guys, like desert hermits but they are all very friendly and seem interested in his project. One guy drove over in a truck to introduce himself and asked about the airport. The guy was a pilot and heard about the new runway in the desert on the ruins of an old WW2 German airbase. Talking to the neighbors is a problem because of the language barrier but they try, and once in a while he meets people who speak Spanish. Since he moved down there he has never heard English spoken out loud, about one in every four speak some Spanish. He's the only non-Arabic speaking person in the area, he never considered language when he thought about moving here from Texas but now he understands what Mexicans go through in the USA.
He said it's kind of funny how from the view out of the control tower the area looks vacant, just weeds and trees and rocks but he said he was surprised to learn how many people actually live within two miles. He keeps hearing people say the roof of the control tower has been part of the landscape since the 1940s then suddenly it was painted bright white after almost 80 years un-changed! Dan told me he had to paint it with a roller and a ten foot telescoping pole, he used a ladder and it took hours to get done. The rest of that gallon got poured on the roof and rolled out but he still needs maybe 2-3 more gallons to seal the rest of the roof, the flat part.
Dan said the one thing everyone said was he needs to sell aviation fuel for propeller aircraft (AV-GAS), not jet fuel. He also texted me photos of the clearings he made for me and he swept half of the hangar clean and used his new skidloader to make a nice ramp for the Citation to drive up and into the hangar. He also improved the driveway around the east end of the runway so vehicles can drive back to the hangar. He has still not finished a road on the north side that goes from the street to the control tower because he doesn't want to encourage people to drive over and knock on his motorhome door.
He said his little skid loader is the neatest thing since sliced bread; he is in love with it and has a hard time turning it off! He's found only one flaw with the design so far. He said there is no positive safety for the front bucket arms, you have to raise it up to drive anywhere or use the backhoe but it slowly settles down again because the hydraulics have internal leakage so he has to make some kind of thing to keep the bucket elevated so it doesn't settle down while he's using the backhoe on front. He's thinking a nine-foot long piece of two-inch schedule-40 steel pipe would hold it up but he'd need to make some kind of base, welded to the frame that would take the constant bouncing. He might need to put something inside it to prevent buckling, maybe concrete or maybe another steel pipe! Long term the skid loader needs to go in for repair on the hydraulic interior leaks, like new seals and O-rings. He also suspects it might just be the nature of the Bobcat that the front bucket just won't stay up and it will never get better.
So the problem is the bobcat has a hydraulic system. And the bobcat is built for attachments to be mounted on the front, but the front bucket is in the way, so you have to raise the bucket until it is straight above the steel roll cage then mount an attachment on the front and disconnect the hydraulic lines and connect them to the attachment, so there is nothing to hold the bucket in place above the roll cage, slowly, it settles down on top of any attachment device you mount on the front. So you have to make something to hold the bucket up while using the attachment, like a backhoe.
He said you can remove the front scoop bucket but it's a major job so nobody does it which is why everyone with a Bobcat has a way of propping the front bucket in the air above the cage, which looks stupid but it works.
He also told me he always thought those four big tires were pneumatic, but they are solid rubber and not full of air. Dan said he's seen other guys with Bobcat skidloaders before who use the backhoe mounted on the front. They have to raise the front bucket and keep it elevated while the backhoe is mounted on the front. Some of them put long pieces of angle steel on the hydraulic arms to keep them extended, but he thinks that might damage the seals and ends of the cylinders so he wants to make a pole to hold the front bucket all the way up, so it sits above the operator cage.
I told him I never drove one before and he said it was like driving a tank, two long lever arms between your knees with buttons on top, push both forward for forward and backward for brakes. He says he's been using about five gallons in it every day; it's so fun and handy. Then Dan shouted: "Throw your shovels away if you got a skid loader!" He said his used one cost $14,300 Euros but needed some repairs at that price, he said his has internal hydraulic leaks and needs one new hose. Replacement hydraulic hoses ain't cheap either.
Dan said he will end up taking the hoe off the skid loader and see if someone can replace all the seals inside the hangar, he'll set it down on wood blocks. Since the arm and bucket are solid steel it's very heavy. Even the hydraulic hoses are heavy with their big brass fittings. He said he might hire someone to come over and replace all the seals on the bobcat and maybe re-build the hydraulic pump too. He thinks the sound it is making is oil blow-by inside the valving block that controls all the attachments, but the main engine seems to be in great shape. No smoke or leaks and it starts immediately.
I reminded him to check videos on youtube, it might not need new seals, it might be the nature of all Bobcat skidloaders. It could be leaking back through the hydraulic pump and not the cylinder seals.
I swear I had ten Americans visit the little Embassy on Sunday. I've never had that much business on a Sunday before. Most of them were super nice, one couple from NYC were total assholes. They have no idea after they left I went into their State Department files and made an entry about verbal abuse. My entry was not the first one on that topic in their records. One of these days they might find that State does not allow them to show up in person but they could hire a lawyer to represent them at State. They sort of felt that since they lived in an apartment overlooking Central Park they should go ahead of everyone else. People like that are why you see so many stores in Manhattan with large signs in the windows saying "We are polite New Yorkers."
It was almost four weeks until I could spend the weekend with Dan at the airport. He knew I was coming so he gave me a list of stuff to get for him (for me to buy in Tangier). There are almost no delivery services out there, you have to go to town and the stores are small, he wanted me to get him bulk items like toilet paper, soap, laundry detergent, razor blades, fly swatters, fly tape strips, AA batteries, and a new 6TB external USB hard drive. There are stores in town where you can order whatever you want online and have it delivered to them and come and pick it up, they charge a small fee for handing and storing. So that is how he gets some of what he needs. But for food most of what he needs is available in town. He said the price for beef is very low and it's all locally raised and slaughtered cattle. The local steer look sort of like a Texas longhorn and since they are not corn fed the beef is much better than in the states. Grass fed is healthier for the steer and the consumer.
Because the airport driveway was now wide and flat the taxi drove all the way to the edge of the runway where I unloaded my cargo. Dan drove over with the skidloader and had me put everything into the bucket on front. I sat on top of the bucket as he drove us back to the motorhome and shut it down.
The first thing I saw was he had a full size wood picnic table sitting near the door to his motorhome and I never noticed before that it had an awning that rolled out on that side for shade. He also had a nice little charcoal grille and a Bluetooth speaker for music. The only thing that was missing was a keg of Coors beer on ice.
I smiled and pointed at his feet, he was wearing boots and I asked why because Dan was more of a barefoot kind of guy.
"Uh no, not out here. There's venomous snakes, three kinds of `em, and mice with big fuckin teeth too."
"Local snakes like to relax on the black asphalt runway at sunrise to warm themselves since they're reptiles. But if I get near them they'll attack, so I stomp their heads and I kill one or two a week, but they keep comin'. That reminds me, I need a baseball bat or some kind of club for killing vermin, or maybe a high power pellet rifle with a scope."
I pointed at the runway and asked if anyone has landed on it yet and he said no, he thinks the big Xs did the trick. A big X on any runway is supposed to be a universal sign that the runway is not to be used, but most of the pilots here speak Arabic and X is not in their alphabet, nor are any letters shaped like an X. Arabic has a very strange alphabet that lends itself to ornate cursive script.
We walked down to look at where he wanted me to park the Citation and told me about a group of pilots who want him to open the runway to them only, and he needed to sell them fuel, and another group of them wanted to hand-make approach lighting, they'll pay the entire cost, all Dan had to do is pay for the electricity. They want to build it beside the west end of the runway, like on an aircraft carrier.
Dan sketched on a note pad how it would work. It would also have one lamp on the other end for proper runway alignment, sort of a centerline indicator. Dan used a stick to draw it in the sand, he said it was how they did it back in the 1920s at airports with no other means of direction finding. It was also like they built for aircraft carriers during World War-2.
He said they buy plastic Fresnel lenses to give each light a narrow-directional beam, then he stopped and said it's hard to explain but he's seen it on Wikipedia too (Optical Landing System), it's not rocket science and there's no electronics involved. He said it used cheap lenses to make the light beam narrow and directional, like a spotlight. At a distance an approaching pilot would only see one lamp at a time because of the lenses, too low and he sees red, too high and he sees yellow, just right and he sees green light. It works exactly the same for left and right of center. Then he repeated it was exactly the same thing they used on the end of WW2 aircraft carriers. He said you can make one out of simple boards, plastic lenses, lamp sockets, regular light bulbs, and some screws and wire.
The runway light at the far end is a problem because there is no electricity way over there so that one may need to be LED and solar powered with battery back-up. But the group of local pilots offered to pay for the entire project so they can use the runway. They have a lot more talking to do about rules before any building starts.
I decided not to tell Dan I was meeting Luis Rodriguez next weekend.
Contact the author borischenaz at mailfence