Omaha Forums

Posted: **Sun Mar 15, 2015 10:25 am**

skinzfan23 wrote:At worksite near Offutt, $1.2 billion StratCom headquarters taking shape

This is such an amazing project. A couple things I found interesting:

While planning the project, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers realized that the water table would likely cause problems at the Offutt site. To head off the issue, they drilled down to bedrock and poured a concrete trench to drain groundwater away and keep the foundation dry.

“It’s a five-story building, surrounded by this bathtub,” said Mike Kolster, chief of StratCom’s Military Construction Division.

The replacement for the LeMay Building’s iconic underground command center will be the most jaw-dropping part of the new headquarters. The new operation center will be inside a thick steel cube, encased in a concrete shell, beneath the surface and surrounded by catwalks and scaffolding.

“We’re making a building within a building within a building,” said Joel Flere, the project’s quality assurance manager from the Army Corps of Engineers.

Posted: **Sun Mar 15, 2015 10:48 am**

Omaha Workd Herald wrote:The replacement for the LeMay Building’s iconic underground command center will be the most jaw-dropping part of the new headquarters. The new operation center will be inside a thick steel cube, encased in a concrete shell, beneath the surface and surrounded by catwalks and scaffolding.

“We’re making a building within a building within a building,” said Joel Flere, the project’s quality assurance manager from the Army Corps of Engineers.

I would have loved to have been part of the Planning & Design for this project. I wonder how many designs they not only took seriously, but how many out of the box designs that were submitted. I wonder if those are public somewhere.

Posted: **Sun Mar 15, 2015 4:21 pm**

Coyote wrote:
Omaha Workd Herald wrote:The replacement for the LeMay Building’s iconic underground command center will be the most jaw-dropping part of the new headquarters. The new operation center will be inside a thick steel cube, encased in a concrete shell, beneath the surface and surrounded by catwalks and scaffolding.

“We’re making a building within a building within a building,” said Joel Flere, the project’s quality assurance manager from the Army Corps of Engineers.
I would have loved to have been part of the Planning & Design for this project. I wonder how many designs they not only took seriously, but how many out of the box designs that were submitted. I wonder if those are public somewhere.

It is an insult to our intelligence when we are told that President Reagan ended the cold war. The cold war is not over. We are still spending billions for stuff like this. Nothings changed. Putin is as dangerous as a rattle snake. Russia has its crooked little wars going and the we got ours. Both sides are acting badly and up to no good and acting crazy. Nope the cold war is not near over.

Posted: **Sun Mar 15, 2015 7:01 pm**

GRANDPASMUCKER wrote:
Coyote wrote:
Omaha Workd Herald wrote:The replacement for the LeMay Building’s iconic underground command center will be the most jaw-dropping part of the new headquarters. The new operation center will be inside a thick steel cube, encased in a concrete shell, beneath the surface and surrounded by catwalks and scaffolding.

“We’re making a building within a building within a building,” said Joel Flere, the project’s quality assurance manager from the Army Corps of Engineers.
I would have loved to have been part of the Planning & Design for this project. I wonder how many designs they not only took seriously, but how many out of the box designs that were submitted. I wonder if those are public somewhere.

It is an insult to our intelligence when we are told that President Reagan ended the cold war. The cold war is not over. We are still spending billions for stuff like this. Nothings changed. Putin is as dangerous as a rattle snake. Russia has its crooked little wars going and the we got ours. Both sides are acting badly and up to no good and acting crazy. Nope the cold war is not near over.

In addition to that, guerrilla warfare is becoming the global standard.

Posted: **Mon Mar 23, 2015 2:35 pm**

RNcyanide wrote:In addition to that, guerrilla warfare is becoming the global standard.

Yet due to the lethargy of our centrally-planned military system and wasteful, entrenched contractors, we're about 10 years behind on having an efficient, effective force or strategy to counter our current threats.

Posted: **Tue Mar 24, 2015 6:29 pm**

Posted: **Wed Mar 25, 2015 12:23 am**

Seth wrote:
RNcyanide wrote:In addition to that, guerrilla warfare is becoming the global standard.
Yet due to the lethargy of our centrally-planned military system and wasteful, entrenched contractors, we're about 10 years behind on having an efficient, effective force or strategy to counter our current threats.

We've come a long way since Vietnam in understanding the dynamics of modern warfare, but we still get stuck in these endless wars because of the warmongers in Congress and the money thrown at them by defense contractors. This will end only when the children of the wealthy political class are forced to fight them.

Posted: **Wed Mar 25, 2015 6:23 am**

ricko wrote:
Seth wrote:
RNcyanide wrote:In addition to that, guerrilla warfare is becoming the global standard.
Yet due to the lethargy of our centrally-planned military system and wasteful, entrenched contractors, we're about 10 years behind on having an efficient, effective force or strategy to counter our current threats.
We've come a long way since Vietnam in understanding the dynamics of modern warfare, but we still get stuck in these endless wars because of the warmongers in Congress and the money thrown at them by defense contractors. This will end only when the children of the wealthy political class are forced to fight them.

Good luck with that one!

Posted: **Wed Mar 25, 2015 9:10 am**

ricko wrote:
Seth wrote:
RNcyanide wrote:In addition to that, guerrilla warfare is becoming the global standard.
Yet due to the lethargy of our centrally-planned military system and wasteful, entrenched contractors, we're about 10 years behind on having an efficient, effective force or strategy to counter our current threats.
We've come a long way since Vietnam in understanding the dynamics of modern warfare, but we still get stuck in these endless wars because of the warmongers in Congress and the money thrown at them by defense contractors. This will end only when the children of the wealthy political class are forced to fight them.

It's not a lack of understanding of modern warfare. Since WWII, the U.S. has been the defining state as to what modern warfare is. Unfortunately for us, we lacked the more logical foresight of knowing where the majority of geopolitical instability would be. We were geared up to to hold hands with the Soviets and commit suicide together, and never really understood how to fight the spread of communism in 3rd world countries.

You're absolutely right, though. We fought proxy wars across the globe against the the Soviets on the soil of impoverished nations, instead of facing eachother head on, and that comes down to having cowardly leadership.

It's easy to write condolence letters to the family of service members who have died in wars that could have been avoided, but much harder to receive those letters.

As was the case in Vietnam, a completely avoidable war, micromanaged by clueless academics in Washington, without ever really having a way to discern who the enemy was on the battlefield. It was simply a war which they measured its success by the number of bodies they collected, while ignoring their own who were killed in action.

Posted: **Wed Mar 25, 2015 10:30 am**

S33 wrote:There's an aircraft hangar being installed in the bunker of this facility, specifically designed to store and back-engineer crashed alien craft.

That's funny. It is a joke isn't it?

Posted: **Wed Mar 25, 2015 12:21 pm**

GRANDPASMUCKER wrote:
S33 wrote:There's an aircraft hangar being installed in the bunker of this facility, specifically designed to store and back-engineer crashed alien craft.
That's funny. It is a joke isn't it?

Posted: **Wed Apr 15, 2015 2:13 pm**

[quote="ricko"We've come a long way since Vietnam in understanding the dynamics of modern warfare, but we still get stuck in these endless wars because of the warmongers in Congress and the money thrown at them by defense contractors. This will end only when the children of the wealthy political class are forced to fight them.[/quote]

One of Nixon's goals in ending the draft was to remove a lot of the opposition to entering future conflicts. With an all-volunteer fighting force, few voters have a personal connection with the soldiers in these wars. There was a very interesting discussion of this effect in a recent article in The Atlantic.

Posted: **Wed Apr 15, 2015 5:19 pm**

Frankly, we need a draft. No exemptions if you are 1A.

It bugs me that people like my friends fly a blue star flag and we pray every day that it never turns gold, yet there are people who constantly advocate for making more gold stars.

If their kids, friends, associates had to go to war, there would be less interest.

Omaha has that memorial to the home front in WW2. I meditate on that. In that war, we went all in. Some fought, but all served. Never since has that been the case. I can't bear to think that my friends might lose a son, but I won't lose a beer.

That is just not right.

Posted: **Wed Apr 15, 2015 5:27 pm**

Frankly, we need a draft. No exemptions if you are 1A.

It bugs me that people like my friends fly a blue star flag and we pray every day that it never turns gold, yet there are people who constantly advocate for making more gold stars.

If their kids, friends, associates had to go to war, there would be less interest.

Omaha has that memorial to the home front in WW2. I meditate on that. In that war, we went all in. Some fought, but all served. Never since has that been the case. I can't bear to think that my friends might lose a son, but I won't lose a beer.

That is just not right.

Posted: **Wed Dec 02, 2015 8:06 pm**

Just saw this. Thought I might post it.

http://www.omaha.com/news/military/as-o ... 74046.html

Posted: **Wed Dec 02, 2015 9:32 pm**

I think the vast number of people in the metro area would agree that we should do anything we can to aid Offutt. If they need another runway they should build it andrepair the existing one. That being said I am no expert on concrete ….

Is $125 million a lot for a runway? I don’t know. This comes out to about $324 per sq yard, assuming it is 3ft thick. (11,700 ft long x 300 ft wide x 3 ft deep). So ... for large concrete projects I look to the Hoover dam which cost 45 million to build; in today’s dollars it would be $750 million. So from that perspective the new Offutt runway would be only 1/6th the cost of the Hoover dam. Still a lot of concrete!

Perhaps they could try some crowd funding and use the military personnel to do the work. Or they could give up one of those military test blimps from Maryland.

Posted: **Wed Dec 02, 2015 11:17 pm**

U R my Helix wrote:I think the vast number of people in the metro area would agree that we should do anything we can to aid Offutt. If they need another runway they should build it andrepair the existing one. That being said I am no expert on concrete ….

Is $125 million a lot for a runway? I don’t know. This comes out to about $324 per sq yard, assuming it is 3ft thick. (11,700 ft long x 300 ft wide x 3 ft deep). So ... for large concrete projects I look to the Hoover dam which cost 45 million to build; in today’s dollars it would be $750 million. So from that perspective the new Offutt runway would be only 1/6th the cost of the Hoover dam. Still a lot of concrete!

Perhaps they could try some crowd funding and use the military personnel to do the work. Or they could give up one of those military test blimps from Maryland.

You can't just factor in inflation when calculating how much the hoover dam would cost today. It would be WAY more $750 million to build today.

Posted: **Thu Dec 03, 2015 7:39 am**

Linkin5 wrote:
U R my Helix wrote:I think the vast number of people in the metro area would agree that we should do anything we can to aid Offutt. If they need another runway they should build it andrepair the existing one. That being said I am no expert on concrete ….

Is $125 million a lot for a runway? I don’t know. This comes out to about $324 per sq yard, assuming it is 3ft thick. (11,700 ft long x 300 ft wide x 3 ft deep). So ... for large concrete projects I look to the Hoover dam which cost 45 million to build; in today’s dollars it would be $750 million. So from that perspective the new Offutt runway would be only 1/6th the cost of the Hoover dam. Still a lot of concrete!

Perhaps they could try some crowd funding and use the military personnel to do the work. Or they could give up one of those military test blimps from Maryland.
You can't just factor in inflation when calculating how much the hoover dam would cost today. It would be WAY more $750 million to build today.

Actually I would bet that for 750 million a company could build the Hoover Dam today and make a huge profit on top of that. They have made vast improvements in construction techniques since 1931 when Hoover was built. I also think its a safe bet that they are going to do millions of dollars of work on the Offutt runway in the near future and that Kiewit or Hawkins or some other connected construction company is going to make a small fortune off it.

Posted: **Thu Dec 03, 2015 8:58 am**

U R my Helix wrote: Is $125 million a lot for a runway? I don’t know. This comes out to about $324 per sq yard, assuming it is 3ft thick. (11,700 ft long x 300 ft wide x 3 ft deep).

3' thick? Really? I have never worked on a runway, but that seems like a lot...

Posted: **Thu Dec 03, 2015 9:10 am**

This could be a larger loss of jobs for Omaha than the Con Agra headquarters move.

Posted: **Thu Dec 03, 2015 10:36 am**

I really doubt they'll leave. I think we have the ball rolling enough right now to get the runway replaced.

Posted: **Fri Dec 04, 2015 2:42 pm**

Brad wrote:
U R my Helix wrote: Is $125 million a lot for a runway? I don’t know. This comes out to about $324 per sq yard, assuming it is 3ft thick. (11,700 ft long x 300 ft wide x 3 ft deep).
3' thick? Really? I have never worked on a runway, but that seems like a lot...

Yeah, that's actually typical for a runway for that kind of air traffic. Considering that concrete itself costs about $100/CY in omaha, the price seems about right. There is a lot of subgrade preparation and utility work to rebuild a runway, not to mention any demolition costs.

Posted: **Fri Dec 04, 2015 5:04 pm**

A few years ago, a friend of mine was looking at some land, I believe South of Bellevue. I went to one site with him, and there were giant chunks of concrete and stuff on the property. The real estate agent told him that allegedly, during one of Offutt's runway renovations, the contractor was able to just dump all the demoed runway pieces where they could in non-populated areas.

Posted: **Fri Dec 04, 2015 7:03 pm**

I thought I had better look this up, my 3' deep number was just a guess to figure the area, I still don't know concrete .... but per "the Internet" and as we know we can always trust what we find on the internet .......
"For heavy-duty commercial aircraft, the pavement thickness, no matter what the top surface, varies from 10 in (250 mm) to 4 ft (1 m), including subgrade. Airport pavements have been designed by two methods.
Runway - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia"

Posted: **Mon Dec 07, 2015 9:03 am**

While I can't say that certain air based missions wouldnt leave, the 55th wing is mostly responsible for running the entire base. If they cease to exist its because the base is closed, which is unlikely given recent investment. No doubt, making the runway safe and reliable is important, however.

Posted: **Wed Dec 09, 2015 2:25 pm**

c-dub wrote:While I can't say that certain air based missions wouldnt leave, the 55th wing is mostly responsible for running the entire base. If they cease to exist its because the base is closed, which is unlikely given recent investment. No doubt, making the runway safe and reliable is important, however.

This.

The concrete thickness for the runway will probably be 18-20", but with the drainage layer and base course(s), the total pavement thickness would be 3' plus.

Posted: **Wed Jan 13, 2016 5:47 pm**

HR Paperstacks wrote:I really doubt they'll leave. I think we have the ball rolling enough right now to get the runway replaced.

Brad Ashford was interviewed by KMTV and asked what he and the President spoke about on Air Force One, and one of the topics was Offut's runway, and he made it sound like it is almost a done deal that it will be replaced.

Posted: **Wed Jan 13, 2016 7:48 pm**

Plus, I'm sure they'd want to have a good ruway nearby after spending over $1 Billion on the new USSTRATCOM HQ, under construction now.

Posted: **Wed Jan 13, 2016 7:57 pm**

Later on, KMTV reported that the State Legislature was putting together an official request/statement/bill to send to DC trying to get all this in motion.

Posted: **Thu Apr 14, 2016 11:26 am**

http://www.omaha.com/news/military/air- ... 70d8c.html

The Air Force has confirmed its commitment to building a new runway at Offutt Air Force Base, Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., said Thursday.

Fischer spoke to The World-Herald after a breakfast meeting with Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James at the Pentagon. Earlier in the week Fischer met with Gen. Mark Welsh, the Air Force chief of staff.

The Air Force has been weighing options on how to tackle the runway, which hasn’t been rebuilt in decades and has fallen into disrepair.
The Defense Department is expected to bid a design contract soon. Construction work could start in the next year or two.

Posted: **Thu Apr 14, 2016 12:07 pm**

That is great news for the metro and especially Bellevue.

Posted: **Thu Apr 14, 2016 1:41 pm**

Most welcome news!

Posted: **Thu Apr 14, 2016 4:06 pm**

skinzfan23 wrote:That is great news for the metro and especially Bellevue.

And the state, they're the single largest employer in Nebraska.

Posted: **Fri Apr 15, 2016 12:43 am**

MTO wrote:
skinzfan23 wrote:That is great news for the metro and especially Bellevue.
And the state, they're the single largest employer in Nebraska.

I would think that is probably the Univ of NE, and as of a 2013, the Med Center employs more people than Offutt.

Posted: **Thu Jun 16, 2016 8:46 am**

I am confused....are they only making repairs, not rebuilding the runway:

Upgrades will extend life of Offutt's lone runway

The Air Force announced Wednesday that it has finalized a plan to extend the life of the runway at Offutt Air Force Base by 20 years.
The $55 million upgrade is expected to take up to nine months to complete and is desperately needed to repair the only runway at Offutt, which serves as a major economic driver and job creator for the Omaha metropolitan area.
Design work is expected to begin in the fall, and construction would follow in 2018.

Posted: **Thu Jun 16, 2016 7:34 pm**

I've read some alternate thoughts on that. They didn't want to close the runway for 2+ years.

Also, I've also seen some rumor mills, that the reason why they are clearing out the buildings north of the runway, like bldg C & D, are because if they can relocate those buildings, they can build a second runway.

Posted: **Sun Jun 26, 2016 11:29 pm**

TLGJames wrote:I've read some alternate thoughts on that. They didn't want to close the runway for 2+ years.

Also, I've also seen some rumor mills, that the reason why they are clearing out the buildings north of the runway, like bldg C & D, are because if they can relocate those buildings, they can build a second runway.

Those buildings are already too close to the runway, which is why they would be going. AF criteria for that class of runway doesn't allow anything over 3 inches tall within 1000 feet of the runway centerline. So they have to get a waiver every year to keep the runway in operation while those buildings are there, and may not be able to spend a dime on maintenance for them. A parallel runway would require another 1000 feet of clear space (so 2000ft from the existing centerline) plus additional if they want any taxiways on that side. By then you are impacting some of the housing areas north of the base.

Posted: **Mon Jul 04, 2016 2:23 pm**

Is $55 million enough for Offutt runway repair? Deciding factors are time and money

Joseph Morton / World-Herald Bureau wrote:Rep. Brad Ashford, D-Neb., told The World-Herald that Haney wanted to keep the runway’s closure down to six to nine months. The partial repair is expected to take about nine months, while a full replacement would have required closer to two years.

Regardless of the scope of the work, shutting down the Offutt runway will force the base’s 55th Wing to relocate during the construction period. In fact, a portion of the project’s estimated cost will go toward relocation expenses, including upgrades at the Lincoln Airport airfield to allow for moving the 55th Wing there.

Posted: **Fri Dec 02, 2016 11:50 am**

If you missed the last Grow Omaha Episode, there was a lot of talk on Offutt, Everything from Levee work, to new runway to a new Drone operation.
http://kfab.iheart.com/media/play/27508049/

Offutt is in the running for a new drone operation which would create 400 new jobs at Offutt. The list of bases including Offutt is down to 5.

Posted: **Fri Jan 13, 2017 9:57 pm**

Air Force doesn't pick Offutt to house new drone unit

http://www.omaha.com/news/military/air- ... f898d.html

Joseph Morton / World-Herald Bureau wrote:WASHINGTON — Offutt Air Force Base appears unlikely to be the military base that will house mission control for a new drone unit.

Offutt had been one of five finalists for the remotely piloted aircraft group, but the Air Force has instead opted for South Carolina’s Shaw Air Force Base as its preferred location, according to the office of Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb.

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