Originally Posted by
RW20
Given the masterplan,surely advice has been received reference RESA on the proposed extension.With the airport management advertising that the extension will give the ability of 320 type aircraft to take heavier loads to Mediterranean destinations,there's a lot of egg on faces if they have got wrong!
One would hope that the airport owner has discussed in detail the RESA issue with CAA.
The minimum ICAO Annex 14 (which I am assuming is being used as SOU is an EASA Certified Aerodrome) length for a RESA for a Code 3 runway is 90 metres which is in addition to the required 60 metre strip end, ie 150 metres clear from the end of the TORA.
The Annex 14 Recommendation is a 240 metre RESA. If this cannot be obtained, which SOU cannot ever do due to the railyard and the M27, a safety case will be necessary to either show that there is reasonable chance that aircraft using the runway can be contained within something less, or the likelihood of an overrun is reduced due to other mitigation, often runway surface friction characteristics, which inevitably comes back to having excellent drainage to reduce the risk of a "wet" runway (or worse).
As mention in many posts, grooving is the way to provide for optimum drainage. Unfortunately while SOU's runway is grooved, as I have in the past pointed out, its not draining as it should. Hopefully this is now being considered and something will be done to improve the 1960s vintage drainage system, which was installed when the runway was originally constructed.
Hopefully the relatively new SOU owners have done their homework, otherwise we could possibly be back into the eggy face mode, which was unfortunately all too frequent an event in the days of Bl***y Awful Airports plc ownership.