Grooving on the runway of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Airport of St. Eustatius will start this evening, Monday August 31st, for a period of 14 days from 18.00 p.m. till 06.00 am. The grooving is expected to cause temporary inconvenience for the neighbourhood due to the use of heavy equipment during the night time hours. Grooving is necessary for safer landing of airplanes.
The purpose of grooming is to drastically reduce hydroplaning, thereby improving braking distance and handling of the aircrafts on wet pavement. Grooved surfaces help to diminish skids on wet or flooded runways and allow for better controlled nose-wheel steering during a landing roll-out. Grooving is done by cutting slim grooves in the concrete, creating thin passages by which excess water falls through, minimizing water on top and allowing tires to grip the pavement. The grooves are cut transversely to the direction of airplane landing. In this way, the risk of hydroplaning is reduced and planes are able to navigate wet runaways more safely.
The grooving will be conducted by Roadgrip, a subcontractor of Van Boekel. Two staff members of Roadgrip will start working this evening following strict quarantine guidelines.