The Vermont Air National Guard will spend $39.8 million upgrading its facilities at the state’s largest airport.
The Guard accepted a contract bid from Kubricky Construction Corp., a company in upstate New York, to replace the apron and upgrade the taxiway at its base at Burlington International Airport in South Burlington.
Construction will take two years and affect 166,000 square yards of flying space, the Guard said. The new surfaces will have a 50-year life span and support all current F-16 flying operations, the Guard said. The Defense Department has selected the site to be a base for its new F-35 fighter jets.
“This is something that has been in the works since long before we got the approval for the F-35s,” said Tracy Morris, spokeswoman for the Vermont Air National Guard.
The Guard said the pavement layout at the airfield has remained nearly unchanged since it was built in the 1950s and the pavements have reached the end of their effective life.
Morris also said parts of the pavements often break, and the particles “can be sucked up into the jet and ruin the jet.”
The F-16s fly in and out of the airport daily, Morris said, and the Guard keeps 15 to 20 of them at its base.
She expects the project to break ground in the next two weeks and be done in the early fall of 2018.
