Throughout the history of warfare, adversaries have regularly attempted to deny one another freedom of movement on the battlefield. Past forms of anti-access served to both protect friendly forces and prevent enemies from gaining positions of advantage.

A key objective in modern conflicts, be they peer to peer, peer to near peer or asymmetric, is to deny the enemy air superiority.  First strike military doctrine calls for suppression of enemy air defences (SEAD) operations in conjunction with long range missile and/or air strikes on strategic targets including air assets and related infrastructure in order to secure air dominance.

Given the proliferation of stand-off weapon systems (SOW) – precision long and medium range guided munitions, including cruise missiles capable of air and submarine launch and low-cost precision glide bombs – many nations are now well equipped to execute first strike warfare.

Just as airport fire services have a clear mandate to save lives in the event of an aircraft accident or incident, an integrated airfield damage repair (ADR) system has as its sole focus the rapid reinstatement of a runway in the event of an attack, to ensure aircraft can take off and land safely.

Runway reinstatement, or airfield damage repair (ADR), is an essential and necessary capability for any frontline airfield to possess. Runway reinstatement capabilities have to be available onsite, rapidly deployable and effective.

There is little point in a nation-state investing in a modern, capable and sophisticated air force, if the simple act of denying their runways renders the aircraft redundant and vulnerable to attack on the ground, whilst ceding air superiority to the enemy. 

THE VOLUCON SOLUTION

Crater repair is performed under conditions of confusion, high stress, and intense pressure. Simplicity, reliability, robustness and redundancy are key attributes for systems that will work in the field.

The philosophy behind the Volucon RDRDR system is to provide a simplified, turnkey solution, that is ready to use immediately an incident occurs, or as soon as it is deemed safe to proceed, and provides expedient and sustainment repairs of bomb craters.

The system anticipates different types of runway damage and is designed to accommodate these efficiently and effectively.

The key objective is to have the runway surface reinstated as quickly as possible to enable aircraft to get airborne without unnecessary delays – delays which increase their vulnerability exponentially in a conflict situation.

The Volucon turnkey solution provides the capability to return a runway to operational status 60 minutes after repair initiation.

LEARN MORE

A comprehensive White Paper on Volucon's Rapid Deployment – Runway Denial Repair (RDRDR) solution is available upon request.