Airport Business - 40

PRODUCT PROFILE
AUTHOR Walker Jaroch

A Runway Washing Star
IT'S TIME for the rubber to meet the road - or in
this case - for the rubber to leave the runway. A
rubbery runway can lead to reduced friction, a
bouncy landing or worse for a plane and pilot if
left unchecked. Luckily, there's a star on the horizon
ready to remove that rubber with up to 40,000 psi
blasts of water - NLB Corporation's StarJet.
"The equipment affords you the ability
to remove rubber and pavement markings
without damaging the surface, or scarring
the surface. The water will penetrate
into the pores of the surface so that you
can remove the marking 100 percent,"
described Troy Aldea, sales engineer
at NLB Corporation. "So, there's no
grinding involved. There's no chemicals
involved. Sometimes, airports will do
rubber removal and they'll use a chemical
to remove the rubber. With high pressure
water, it can be done without chemicals."
The first StarJet was launched in 1995
when NLB realized there was a market for
removing markings without damaging
the surfaces those markings were on.
"NLB was using high pressure water
from removing coatings and steel office
buildings and shop f loors. It was just a
natural progression into the highway
industry," added Aldea.
It was then another "makes sense"
transition from highway to runway and

24 years later in 2019, NLB offers four
different models of StarJet - the SRV-1,
the SRV-4, SRV-4S, and SRV-6.
For airports, Aldea said the best
options are the SRV-4S and SRV-6
because "the removal head traverses from
side to side as the truck moves forward.
So, you're able to get a eight foot wide
cleaning path."
Some of the key features of the
StarJet include NLB's high pressure
pumps which, Aldea said, has a life of
between between 1,000 and 1,500 hours
and a maximum output of up to 40,000
psi. The StarJet has an onboard supply of
freshwater and vacuum recovery. On the
SRV-4s and SRV-6, there are dual wide
cleaning heads allowing from between a
10 inch wide and 27 inch wide cleaning
pattern. There's also onboard debris
storage and waster water, and the ability
to separate water from debris for easy
dumping.
A new feature introduced this year is
the ability to integrate
Wi-Fi with the StarJets,
a l low i ng for the
wireless monitoring of
the StarJet's programs
and systems.
Training for an
airport technician
comes in two phases
Aldea described.
"During the first
round, the customers

40 \ AIRPORTBUSINESS / AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2019

send their people to NLB and they go
through a full three or four days of
training at our facility. We talk about
safety. Our safety portion of the training
is done in conjunction with WJTA
guidelines, then we cover operations
and maintenance. And there's hands
on training out in the shop where they
actually get to operate a truck in the yard
there and do a little bit of removal as part
of the training program. They're also out
in the shop taking apart things, putting
them back together, and then actually
testing the truck after they've done that,
so they make sure they've done it the
right way. And then the second round of
training, NLB sends a technician out to
the customer's location and pretty much
operations and maintenance training is
done at the customer's location, and that's
typically a three day process," he said.
To help keep the StarJet in
working order, Aldea said the primary
maintenance an operator needs to worry
about is simply greasing the system,
replacing nozzles, "nozzle covers" and
high pressure seals.
"NLB offers a maintenance kit
program. What that entails is a customer
purchasing a kit that contains modular
components that are inside of an NLB
pump. They open up their pump and
they swap out the components in the
pump for what's in the kit, they send the
used components in the kit back to NLB
and we totally go through all of those
components and refurbish them. They
pay $500 for the kit, but it won't cost
them anything to have refurbishment
of the items in the kit. It's kind of an
insurance policy that allows them to have
fresh components in the pump and they
don't have to worry about a pump going
down on a job," Aldea said.
And Aldea said the feedback from
customers utilizing the StarJet has
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