The Fight to Replace FAA’s Battle Mountain Radar
FAA technicians and engineers faced perilous conditions to replace a long-range radar antenna and radome essential to commercial aviation and our nation’s security.
By Jim Tise, FAA
When FAA technicians finally reached the damaged radar situated atop Battle Mountain, NV, they might have wondered if they’d already lost the battle to Mother Nature.
The globe-like radome protecting the radar appeared to have been bitten off. Repeated storms had dropped tons of snow — as much as 20 feet — on the mountain, collapsing half of the radome and knocking the radar out of service on Dec. 27, 2022.
“It was just the shock and awe that nature could do that,” said Jonathan Norris, an FAA engineering manager, upon first seeing the damage. “Never once have we had a radome collapse for ice and snow. These were historic snowfalls,” he added.
So began a half-year effort to replace the radar antenna and radome that culminated July 19 when the radar was returned to operation. During that time, FAA employees from across the country worked diligently and with ingenuity to locate, tear down, rebuild and test a replacement radar antenna and radome, then prepare the site for rehabilitation.
The long-range radar on Battle Mountain is an important cog in the nation’s airspace system. It supplies important navigational data to commercial aircraft, as well as to the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security for their missions of air sovereignty and border/homeland protection.
The struggle to initially assess the damage was just the first of many challenges facing the FAA. There was so much snow that two attempts to access the radar by land proved too perilous. Ten-foot-tall snow poles implanted to mark the side of the steep road were completely covered. Local authorities cautioned the FAA to stop trying to clear the mountain road because of avalanche concerns. The agency finally had to helicopter in technicians for an assessment.
David Johnson, an FAA radar communications specialist, recalls those flights occurring in temperatures around 10 degrees Fahrenheit in winds reaching 50 mph. “A couple of times we almost didn’t make our flights to the top because of winds and visibility issues. At one point, there was less than 10 feet visibility.” He remembered feeling nervous on one occasion when it took the helicopter two hours to find a hole in the clouds to lift them off the mountain.
The good news, initially, was that the antenna — though significantly damaged — was fixable, and the adjacent communications equipment that pilots and controllers use to speak to each other remained intact.
But Mother Nature wasn’t finished.
In early March, under another heavy snowstorm, the antenna fell over on the microwave communications equipment. The antenna couldn’t be salvaged and all backup and communications systems were destroyed. The operation shifted from repair mode to replacement, exacerbating an already complicated situation.
“We’ve never had to replace a whole antenna under these severe weather conditions on top of a mountain before,” said Norris. Because the style of antenna on Battle Mountain was built in the 1950s and 1960s, the FAA’s center in Oklahoma City did not have another one in stock. The team had to scramble to find an antenna not in use, eventually locating one at an FAA facility in New Jersey, where it was being used for testing. But it had not been used operationally for some time. Over several weeks, technicians disassembled the radar and shipped it to Oklahoma City, where it was reassembled and tested to make sure it was usable. Some of the parts were so old that the FAA had to custom fabricate new ones.
In the meantime, the FAA worked frantically to identify a contractor that could lift out the damaged 10,000-pound antenna. That proved difficult because the radar’s weight and the dangerous flying conditions narrowed the agency’s choices considerably.
The agency finally found a medium-lift Puma helicopter as it was returning from Argentina in April, where it had been used for fighting fires. The day before it arrived, the weather was perfect: beautiful blue skies and little wind. The next day, when the helicopter arrived, the workers were fighting snow blowing in sideways on 20 mph winds. The FAA team now faced the most critical phase of the project.
“[Removing the destroyed radar antenna and radome] and the moment when the new radar was lifted up were two of the most pressure points in the operation,” said Norris, who watched the successful operation via a U.S. Forest Service camera situated nearby. Many factors were in play, of which ensuring personnel safety was paramount. It was getting late in the day as well, so time was of the essence.
By May, enough snow had melted to allow the FAA to begin work on replacing the radar. The 35,000-pound radar antenna and dome were shipped via semi tractor-railers to Battle Mountain in seven specially built crates that measured as large as 25x9x9 feet. FAA personnel had to account and contract for every need at the mountaintop, from water, to tools, to vehicles, and even eight 500-pound concrete barrier blocks.
“We wanted to be able to strap our progress down so it wouldn’t blow off the mountain,” said James Cruce, a manager at the FAA’s Logistics Center, referring to the barrier blocks. It proved to be prescient considering the FAA team had to battle 50 mph winds at the peak.
When the semi drivers arrived at Battle Mountain with the replacement equipment, they balked. Ahead of them was a steep, 12-mile road with narrow turns and switchbacks, flanked on one side by sheer drop offs of thousands of feet. They refused to drive up to the peak. FAA technicians had to unload the equipment at the base. “We had to take everything up piece by piece,” said Cruce. “It was like carrying a matchstick one at a time to build the Empire State Building.”
Road conditions proved harsh to vehicles. FAA technicians had to instantly become mechanics, fixing flat tires and replacing busted coolant hoses. One vehicle suffered a broken axle, so technicians had to track down a replacement axle and repair the truck right there on the road.
With the new radar antenna and radome now stationed at the peak, three crews worked in shifts around the clock to reconstruct the replacement radar. A crane was brought in to lift the new radome onto its platform.
When the new radar antenna and radome were finally set into place, “we were virtually high-fiving over the phone,” said Norris.
Technicians and engineers powered up the equipment slowly to make sure it was operating correctly. Once the communications links were restored, it was all systems go for the new equipment.
Nearly three dozen FAA employees worked on-site to replace the Battle Mountain radar, with dozens more working behind the scenes.
“What impressed me was all the people who came out to the site to do all the work,” said Johnson. “They understand the importance of why we needed to get the radar back up and running.”
The head of the DOD’s Long Range Radar Joint Program Office summed it up best: “Please extend my appreciation and admiration to Mr. Jon Norris and the entire [FAA] team for their outstanding support. The way this team faced the technical and environmental challenges associated with this project, speaks volumes to the high level of professionalism and dedication of this entire team.”
The FAA won a hard-fought battle against Mother Nature on this one.
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