Airport Business - 12

MILITARY PROCUREMENT
AUTHOR Walker Jaroch

Mission Critical:

Keep Military Aviation Airborne
WITH MISSIONS at home and abroad, the military
have equipment needs that supersede most other
industries. The process of military procurement is
an entire industry on itself. And while there exist
similarities between an airbase and an airport in
some measures, the requirements of a military
airfield almost always surpass that of a municipal
airport's - even over something as ubiquitous to
aviation as the removal of foreign object debris.
Greg McShane, airfield operations
ground support equipment. However,
officer for the Marine Corps Air Station
as with their FOD sweepers, what the
Yuma - which operates in conjunction
air station needs to operate exceed what
with the Yuma International Airport
the airport needs.
through a shared-used contract - detailed
"Our optical jet aircraft tend to be
the differences between the air station's
very FOD-sensitive just because of where
the engine intakes are and the material
and airport's FOD needs.
"They have one FOD sweeper on
that the aircraft skin is made out of. We
their side. We have a fleet on our side," have almost daily FOD challenges and
McShane said.
are constantly sweeping, cleaning the
The overlap in equipment and
runway surfaces," McShane explained.
operational needs between civilian "As a result, it's critical that we maintain
a very, very clean airfield and runway
aviation and military is most often
found at joint-use airports. Though, as
surfaces because some of our jet aircraft,
McShane explained, even then there is
the smallest pebble can wreak havoc to
little the two entities share besides land. a single-engine tactical aircraft."
"Equipment requirements specific
Though operational and equipment
needs differ, the relationship that the
to general aviation and to commercial
Marine Corps Air Station Yuma and
air carriers can be very different as far
as equipment support requirements for Yuma International Airport has is one
military tactical aircraft. We deal with
of a kind, as airport director Gladys
things that they just don't deal with. As
Brown detailed.
a Marine Corps Air Station, it's very
"It is a shared use with an, on station,
Joint Use Operating Agreement,
common for our aircraft to operate
with an ordnance on board. A lot of our
which was formed in 2009, and has set
equipment is very, very specific to the
precedence. There is not one property
type model aircraft that we support here," owner of all the land, however the
McShane said.
runways and majority of taxiways are
He added that the most common
on Department of the Navy property.
overlap in equipment needs between
The air station owns their property
the air station and airport are with
and their areas within the airfield and

12 \ AIRPORTBUSINESS / APRIL 2020

then we're co-located on the same
airfield where the county owns the
property itself. We understand which
properties we take care of and which
taxiways are our primary responsibilities
for rehabilitation, reconstruction and
maintenance," Brown said.
She continued, "We together have
formed an operating agreement on station,
which is very unique. If you look around
the nation, a lot of co-located airfields
with civilian and military operations,
typically, they're required to have a
joint use agreement. What we have is
an operating agreement between the
MCAS Yuma and the airport authority.
And so, we have essential services such
as a aircraft rescue and fire fighting that
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