MOUNT VERNON — It may look like a powerful train locomotive in some respects, but the Knox County Airport’s newest piece of maintenance machinery is actually called a Sweepster “Snow Eliminator.” The Sweepster arrived at the airport just this week, with airport Manager Joshua Wynn and his maintenance crew already learning how to operate and maintain the large unit.
The Sweepster has an 18-foot brush that can be set at angles — so with just one pass in each direction on the airport taxiway, Wynn can handle a foot of snow without problem. The runway is wider so would take longer but would also take less time than a dump truck equipped with a blade, he offered.
But the Sweepster — this one a late 1990s model, and manufactured in Dexter, Michigan — doesn’t have just one use. Wynn offered the News a ride in the two-seat front cabin. With the flip of some switches, he could easily raise and lower the 18-foot circular brush to ground level, and set it at an angle. From there, the two blowers on either side of the Sweepster, located well behind the brush, whooshed away all of the small stones and pebbles from the tarmac.
“Pilots don’t want stones nicking their ‘peelers,” he said of plane propellers.
The way Knox County Airport officials came across the Sweepster involved a bit of serendipity. They were looking at an obscure airport surplus equipment-related website that few people know about, Airport Authority President Chris Cordle said. They came across the Sweepster for sale at just over $4,000. The machine was checked out, and purchased late last year.
Some diesel work was done reconditioning the engines — a 450-hp diesel engine that drives the rig, and another 450-hp engine for the broom. In effect, Cordle said, the Airport Authority purchased a still very-good-condition Sweepster for $16,000 that when it was sold, new, had a purchase price of $700,000. Today’s newest models cost around $850,000.
