European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - April 30, 1977, Darmstadt, Hesse                                The stars and stripes Page 9 the Button beam and its Developer in a a upholder cram1 drops he Pedestal into place while army engineers prepare to fit on he Button team and the following beam left at right is 5 John who devised the method that cuts runway repair costs and also speeds Schuettler army engineers idea cuts runway repair costs 4 Tmima in i Riff i Ornt Ullh the nutty of hmm Prfu Qinnn thu Urf hot fill in i i with thu Slid by Frau Durfee staff writer Germany Sis Al a much the Button beam int Likely to become n household it frequently is discussed by nato engineers concerned with Airfield runway a new method of or smooth Concrete that will save the govern ment both Money and manpower was developed by 5 John Button of the 293rd combat engr in one of the missions of the battalion is what the engineers Call rapid repair of members of the 293rd have been work ing for the past year on ways to repair bomb craters rapidly in simulated run according to 8th inf div officials the repair method developed Here Dif fers from other nato nations in that the repair work is designed to be not in they solicited ideas ii All started when we were sitting in a classroom and who was Bat Talion commander at the asked us if we had any ideas on How to fill a Hole bomb Crater without wasting manpower and said the Cement expert from North said they tried Many methods of sorted my Cement Over the craters but with Nul much one was a grader with a wooden Exten Sion ii didst work because the grader  extend far Button then we went to i beams and Railroad ties timed by a but that left an irregular outer Edge and the finished surface waste it slut Tim came up with a method thai was denims United Here recently before a group of nato evil engineering officers and other interested military including s of Leah Kali Ami seventh army the syst Chi works Bee Aase the Ron Rete is Placid in a rather a parallel said turn an army uni Jinni r fur inc past 11 years beam has a Pedestal Lmh a placed in tile Center of a bomb Crater when it is filled in and ready for its my Rele roof one end of the beam is at Tail Iii to to Pedestal and the other end is towed in a Circle around the outer Edge of the spreading out and flattening the Cement As its poured the screening which can be extended or shortened to match the size of a bomb is followed by what Button called a following the Cement finishers ride on smoothing out the sur the demonstration of the beam and rapid runway repair took place at the Goth inf div army Airfield five Hundred pounds of a plastic was set off about nine feet underground to Simu late an exploding 750pound in addition to the the exercise conducted by inc 293rd demonstrated the practical use of regulate set Cement according to experts sets in about 23 minutes and can take the Load of an f4 aircraft in about one the time depends upon thu temperature and can be adjusted by controlling the amount of re Larder added to the they its a special kind of Concrete made for runway repair developed by the Portland Cement Here in the Heidelberg Cement has the said they ship it to a contractor Here and when they deliver we put the water to he said that a 12inch slab of Normal Concrete would take a minimum of 72 hours to set during the a Dozer moved into the Crater and pushed huge slabs of Concrete torn apart from the blast out to the Edge of the deep loaders were used to push debris from the runway and some of it Back into the graders were then brought into play to fill in the Hole with crushed which was brought to the scene by dump after much pushing and slaving and rear ranging Cement crushed Rock and debris from the Pedestal was placed in the Center by a Crane and was then fitted out with the Button Cement trucks then roared up to the the German civilian Drivers got caught up with thu atmosphere of the realistic operation and unloaded their cargo of the Quick setting Cement with As much gusto As the army Engineer Cement work ers exhibited As they went about their work filling in the a lot of different countries and differ ent brunches of the service have tried to develop a fast method of repairing run said so were pretty proud that we came up with this idea and Hope Etc body adopts dump and other heavy equipment Are brought into play la fill in a simulated bomb