Dry ice blasting at the airport

Airport runways are marked with thousands of lights that serve as an orientation aid for pilots. These lights need to be cleaned on a regular basis in order to ensure that they shine brightly at all times. In the past, this was done manually in what was a rather laborious process. Today, it can be done using time-saving and efficient technology. Zurich Airport uses an ASCOJET dry ice blasting unit to clean the majority of its approximately 8,000 runway lights. This unit sits on a mobile structure on the vehicle, with the compressor towed behind as a trailer. In front of the vehicle is a front-mounted hydraulic structure fitted with a sensor and a jet nozzle. The sensor detects each light and triggers the dry ice jet as well as the movement of the front-mounted hydraulic structure, so the driver can simply keep on driving during the cleaning process. Thanks to the automatic system, the driver can perform the cleaning job on his own.