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    It was a beautiful day, perfect weather for painting the markings on Runway 9-27. We were just finishing our coffee when the contractor rolled up in front of the office. I looked at my watch and said to the other inspector "7:30 am, they should get an early start." I was eager to get this work completed as the weather was getting a little 'iffy' at this time of year and the markings were pretty faded.

    As the contractor walked into the office, I noticed the small group of workers following the taller man I figured was the supervisor. "Morning" I said as he extended his hand. "Howdy" he replied and introduced himself as "Junior"; the others went without introduction. "Looks like a great day to paint the runway," he said. My smile showed that I agreed. "Let's go outside and check your material and equipment" I suggested. He said, "The material's already loaded in the truck, but you're welcome to look in the tank" he said.

    I walked outside and noticed the tall tanks that I would need a ladder to peer inside. "You're supposed to bring the paint in the shipping containers" I said "so I can verify the amount of material used." "When we go to a job, we like to start painting right away so we don't waste any time", Junior stated. "Did you bring the empty containers with you?" I asked. "No, they take up too much room on the truck; but we have some others on the supply truck we'll be using." Junior escorted me around to the back of a large box truck that held the rest of the materials while his workers proceeded to set up the paint truck and get ready. There I saw several barrels of paint and one pallet of glass beads. "How much paint do you have here?" I asked. "Well, we loaded 330 gallons in the truck and we have another six drums here," he replied; "that ought to do it." I had already done the calculations and he was right; it would take twelve drums of paint to do the whole job, but I had no real assurance there were six drums in the tank. "How about glass beads," I asked. Knowing that the project specifications called for Type III high index beads, I had done the math and figured they'd need close to 7,500 pounds. I only saw 2,000 pounds in the supply truck and verified they had Type III stamped on the bags. "We already loaded them, too; our tank holds 6,000 pounds."

    Now I'm getting a little suspicious. I learned in the training seminar that Type III beads are expensive; and that the FAA specifications call for 12 pounds per gallon. They had mentioned how, when using the high index beads, close attention should be paid to coverage rates, that it's easy to put down less and still get bright markings because the beads are so brilliant to begin with. That means that the contractor walks ' away with a little more profit and the airport doesnt get what it's paying for. But there are other ways of checking coverage rates, so I decided not to challenge him.

    The crew had the truck ready to go in a short while and we proceeded out to the runway that had been closed to traffic for the day. They pulled up onto the threshold markings on the 27 end and the workers poured out of the trucks and set cut-offs the ends of the markings. Meanwhile Junior and another helper ran a test line to get their 3-foot pattern perfected. "Give me a line without glass beads", I requested. I laid down a piece of duct tape across the line where they would spray and checked the mil thickness as they went by. The truck was moving at 3 mph per my "speed check" device and they sprayed a 3-foot pass right over my tape. The wet mil gauge registered 16 mils. "Perfect" I said with a thumb up in the air. A knowing smile crossed Junior's face. "Now let me see it with glass beads." Junior's nod to his operator on the back of the truck was all it took to have beads falling on the next pass. I pulled out the sample plate I had been given during training to look at the amount of glass beads that 12 pounds looked like and compared it to what I saw on the ground. It looked a little light to me, so I asked if they had any way of calibrating their bead guns. Junior gave me a look that made it clear I was wasting his time. "Look" he said, "I've been doing this for a long time; and I've never had to re-calibrate my bead guns." "Well, humor me" I said as I pulled out my calibration bucket and stopwatch. "At 3 mph" I said, "you should get 160 mm of beads in 10 seconds." Junior was surprised, but he reluctantly agreed to take the time to go through the exercise. "Ready, go" and the beads from the first gun fell into the bucket; "Stop", I said after 10 seconds. I checked the measurement and it was less than 100 mm. "Can you adjust your bead gun to put out more?" I asked. The helper started turning a knob on the bead gun to make the adjustment. The next test gave us the desired measurement. After doing the same thing to all of the bead guns, they ran another test pass. I compared it again to my sample plate and was satisfied they had the right coverage.

    They pulled up on the first threshold marking and started to paint. Again I checked their speed and they were rolling at 3.5 mph. "A little faster", I thought. "Slow it down just a bit", I said at the end of the pass. Junior was getting noticeably perturbed. The next pass was a 3 mph on the nose. "Great!" I told him with a thumb up as he looked my way. A nod was all I got back.

    As the work continued, I walked around the area noticing some dirt that had been tracked onto the markings. As the truck neared the dirt, I asked if they had a blower or broom to sweep away the dirt. "That'll blow away as we paint" he answered. I watched as the dirt blew away, alright, right onto the fresh, still wet paint next to it. Junior saw my face, but continued up the line. Again, I stopped him after that pass and asked if they had any way of cleaning the markings ahead of the truck. "I'm here to paint," he responded, "not clean." "It says in the specs you're supposed to sweep or blow off these markings" I answered. "Our sweeper is on another job," he said. "We don't usually have to do that." I explained that there were other areas where the existing paint looked like it was peeling up and asked how he planned to prepare those surfaces. Again, I got a look of him losing his patience. "Look", he said as he climbed out of the truck, "we're here to get this job done today. You show those guys", pointing to his other workers, "where the paint is peeling and they'll scrape it up." "You're supposed to sweep everything," I answered. "I don't have the sweeper," he repeated; "they can do it with scrapers and the push broom." I asked the other workers to follow me to the areas I had noticed peeling paint; and they proceeded to get out hand scrapers and brooms to 'prepare' the area. It took them a long time to get up the loose paint; and the paint truck was nearing the area. Junior was motioning his workers to hurry up and they started brooming the loosened paint chips off of the marking and into the grass at the side of the runway. "Hold on" I said, "that debris should be picked up, not put in the grass." It was like I was speaking a different language, because they kept sweeping the debris off the runway. I stopped them and asked if they had a shovel. One of them walked over to their pick up and got a shovel out of the back. They then swept the paint chips into the shovel and dumped them into an empty 5-gallon bucket. Satisfied, I watched as the paint truck moved over the 'prepared' area. As the paint guns crossed over the spot, other paint chips started flying, indicating that there was more loose material that needed to come up. Junior knew it, too, but acted like it was standard operating procedure. He wasn't too surprised this time when I stopped him from painting again, but his answer was the same: "If you want this runway painted today, you're going to have to let us paint." I told him I'd like to get it done today too, but it needed to be done right. We walked back over to where they had just painted and saw pieces of paint that had been dislodged. I reached down and pulled up another piece that had fresh paint on it, exposing a bare spot on the pavement. "This needs to be cleaned better than this," I said. "Then we're not going to finish today," he answered. I gave him a knowing look that indicated I really didn't care; I was only interested in giving the airport a good job.

    Junior called his office and explained what was happening. When he got off the phone, he said the sweeper would be there in about an hour. "Then I suggest you wait until it arrives before you do any more work. There are other areas that need to be scraped." I showed his helpers some of the other areas and they proceeded to scrape more loose paint off of the surface. Finally, the sweeper arrived and cleaned up the paint chips. The truck resumed painting.

    At around 1:30, they ran out of material in the truck. While they were reloading, I calculated how much painting they had done and did the math to see how much material they should have used. According to my calculations, they should have used close 350 gallons of paint and a little over two tons of beads. IF they started with 330 gallons, they were close. By 5:00, they had finished all the markings and were beginning to disassemble the truck. "How much paint do you have left?" I asked. "Oh, about 10 gallons," he answered. That would have been about right based on my calculations. "Are you going to drain the tank to find out?" I asked. "We do that back at the shop", he said. "But you have an empty drum right here", I said, pointing to a drum on the ground. Once again, he shot me a look, but rolled the drum into place. Taking off a paint line, he ran the paint into the drum. It was over half full when the sputtering of air came through the line indicating the tank was empty. "That's about 30 to 35 gallons, not 10", I said. He shrugged his shoulders and started putting the lid on the drum. But I knew the coverage was within tolerance, so I then asked "How about the glass beads?" "I don't have any way of draining them here", he said. "But I put them all in the tank." I wanted to check the amount of beads left; so I asked if we could at least look in the tank and try to determine how many there were. "No problem", he said. He opened the tank and peered down inside. He motioned on the outside of the tank that the level was down at the bottom. I wanted to verify his assessment; so he moved out of the way and gave me the flashlight to look inside the tank. He was right; the beads were close to the bottom of the tank which meant they had used very close to the right amount. I handed him the flashlight and smiled, "that's great", I said.

    As they drove away from the airport, I felt like they had done a better job than they would have if I hadn't been there; and the runway looked great. The last part of my job would be to come back when it got dark and survey the markings for even reflectivity.

    At 9 pm, I drove out onto the runway. The markings were bright and pretty uniform. They had done a good job; and the airport got what they were paying for.

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