Pittsburgh International Airport warms up for a deep freeze with winter maintenance fleet

“It’s like Pam spray on a cooking pan,” Buranovsky said. “Anything above 35 in the winter, we feel good,” Moorhead said.

The friction tester is first on the runway during a storm, making sure that it is still safe for aircraft to land and taxi. That’s a job for the Austrian-made Snow Wolf, which can blow away up to 10,000 tons of snow per hour.