Air Force Asks Apalachin Company 
to Help Train Pilots

 The United States Air Force has asked Landfill Service Corporation, a small company in Apalachin, to help  better train pilots at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas. 

     "We've done some unique projects in the past," says Joel Lanz, Division Vice President of Landfill Service Corporation (LSC).  "Right after 911 we were asked to take our product and technology to help in the World Trade Center clean-up effort. So when we received this call, it wasn't that strange." 
    
Landfill Service, which is located at 2183 Pennsylvania Avenue,  manufacturers a patented cover system called Posi-Shell® that is used for landfill cover and erosion control. This product is a unique mix of water cement-kiln-dust, and fiber. Engineers involved with Nellis Air Force Base wanted to know if LSC could dye this product and apply it throughout the million-acre Top Gun practice ranges at Nellis. 
   
 "The engineers involved with Nellis want their pilots to look down from the aircraft and see the roads and lakes and fields they are targeting, instead of seeing just brown desert. So the idea was to dye the product and create blue Posi-Shell lakes and green Posi-Shell fields and black Posi-Shell roads, that could be seen from a speeding jet so the pilots can train in a more realistic environment. Also, the bombs that the pilots train with send up smoke on impact, so the pilots will now be able to physically see if they hit the field or the road they were aiming for." 

     Landfill Service has been told that although the project is not official yet, Nellis has already started briefing their pilots on the change. Once the project is official, Landfill Service will transport the two large pieces of equipment necessary to apply the colored Posi-Shell at the base, along with the technicians necessary to do so, from Apalachin to Nevada.   

     "I'm writing into the contract that I will need to inspect all the work from above in an F-15," Lanz jokes. "Just to be sure everything is going alright."