Binge Painting
By Mike Speidel

Last Friday, Netflix's second season of Ozark was released in its entirety. Over Labor Day weekend, my wife (Jen) and I "turned", as they say in AMC's The Walking Dead, into binge watching zombies. We tucked the boys into their beds as soon we thought it was socially reasonable (It's 7 o'clock somewhere), gathered enough snack food to make ourselves ill (courtesy of Costco), and took the batteries and SIM cards out of our phones to make sure we couldn't be found.

We share this maniacal habit with several of our friends and family, and we all agree it's irrational and a waste of our precious time... but we don't let that stop us. In fact, the only thing that snaps us out of a binge is when the season abruptly ends and we have wait 357 days for the next season: It's not healthy. I always imagined my two boys would be older when they first realized their Dad wasn't cool anymore.

I'm always reminded of my own irrational behavior when I speak with my airport clients. While it's true, every airport is unique, many share the common practice of routinely repainting the airside, landside, parking lots/garages in a frantic, borderline obsessive, way to "refresh the markings". It's binge painting. Some airports finish restriping everything only to start the whole process again like they're painting the Golden Gate Bridge. Binge painting is usually just after binge plowing and just before binge mowing, depending on the climate. I can't speak to plowing or mowing, but it's hardly healthy for an airfield marking program. There's a better way.

The factors that lead to binge painting could include:

1. No maintenance criteria. When does a marking stop performing? There are currently no defined performance standards for airfield marking maintenance.
2. Marking inspection is subjective. Ops Steve: "The markings passed the old eye test". Ops Cindy: "You need to get your eyes checked, they look faded to me!"
3. Part 139 Inspection. The mother of motivation is compliancy. If you can't tell what's good from bad, painting everything guarantees you'll cover up the bad.

What if airports could solve all of these issues in one fell swoop? The method would have to identify maintenance requirements using objective, measurable data, to identify what was good and what was bad.

Good news - the method exists - it's our Airfield Marking Assessment. We leverage state-of-the-art mobile equipment to quickly measure the performance of all of your airfield markings. No more subjectivity, just objective reflectivity and color measurements overlayed on a fully interactive Google Earth map of your airfield. Just imagine how much money and time you could save by knowing where you need to repaint and where you don't based on the numbers.

Don't forget the assessment when you're considering what's going into your next budget cycle. It's more affordable than you think - you can finally end the paint binge - request more information.

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