When it comes to airport infrastructure, the design of terminals may have changed over the years, but the long, straight runway has stayed remarkably consistent. Dutch researcher Henk Hesselink thinks it's time for a change. His radical ideas about runway design would transform the modern airport's operations, layout, and efficiency—and even its architecture.
Since 2012, Hesselink and his team at the National Aerospace Laboratory (NLR) in the Netherlands have been working on a runway design that's circular instead of straight. Their so-called Endless Runway Project—funded by the European Commission's Seventh Framework Program, which supported research in breakthrough technology from 2007 through 2013, and in partnership with several other European scientific agencies—proposes a circular design that would enable planes to take off in the direction most advantageous for them. Namely, the direction without any crosswinds.
https://www.fastcodesign.com/90107235/why-airport-runways-should-actually-be-circular
[Related]: giant circles from the air
Do you think such a design would work in practice?
Related Stories
BBC News has a follow-up article to the circular airport runway proposal:
Last month we published a video arguing the case for circular runways at airports, as part of a series called World Hacks. It took off and went viral. The video has had more than 36 million views on Facebook and generated heated debate on social media - including within the aviation community. Many people are sceptical about the concept.
So we decided to hand-pick some of the top concerns and put them straight to the man proposing the idea: Dutch engineer Henk Hesselink. This is what he had to say.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Mykl on Wednesday March 29 2017, @10:58PM (13 children)
Often runways are aligned to flight paths, which are agreed with local governments/councils to accommodate noise pollution around populated areas. I assume that a circular runway that allows pilots to take off from any direction would throw all of that out of the window.
I can imagine life as an Air Traffic Controller would also be really fun during those times of cross-wind. Suspect that, since most pilots are trained to handle moderate cross-wind, that it would be 'too hard' to break out a different set of angles.
I get the idea of a banked curve to 'balance out' the side force of turning, though I would imagine that these could be incredibly hard to perform emergency landings on.
Looks like you'll need to dig some pretty significant tunnels to get all of the airport traffic under the runways and terminals too.
Based on all of this, I assume that this design is only intended for new airports, not 'upgrades' to existing ones?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday March 29 2017, @11:05PM (1 child)
> Air Traffic Controller would also be really fun during those times of cross-wind.
Winds also shift direction fairly quickly. Are you gonna send dozens of planes around the airport twice?
> which are agreed with local governments/councils to accommodate noise pollution around populated areas.
"Those planes are back where they belong ... over the houses of poor people" - Homer Simpson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Spritz_Goes_to_Washington [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Thursday March 30 2017, @12:07AM
I just realized congressman Krusty is now president.
compiling...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday March 29 2017, @11:06PM (9 children)
Airport noise pollution controls are such utter B.S. - at least in Miami. The takeoff to the east directions say: "proceed to Biscayne Bay, then turn left" which works well for the passenger planes that make a gentle arc out over the (mostly unpopulated) bay and then begin their serious climbout. Meanwhile, the cargo pilots pull a high-G left, point their engines at Biscayne Boulevard and the surrounding homes, and utterly blast everything from 35th Street north to about 90th Street with a direct focused full throttle climbout.
There's a website where you can report objectionably loud aircraft operations. In response, they send you a radar track of the plane you most likely complained about and tally your complaint in a monthly report. In other words, they know you're pissed, they know why, they show the aircraft and its ground track including altitude, clearly blasting the neighborhoods with jetwash so loud you can't scream to each other inside the house until it passes. Every couple of years they publish a summary report, make fun of the guy who reports every single plane that flies over his house, and ignore the 500 or so other people who took the time to register complaints.
Nothing changes, meanwhile - the leaves of the plants in the yard occasionally get brown spots from jet fuel raining down from the leakers - you can tell because the "shadowed" leaves don't get the spots - the "spotting agent" is raining down vertically.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by subs on Thursday March 30 2017, @01:05PM (8 children)
Airport noise pollution controls are such utter B.S.
You may think so if you're the unfortunate guy on the receiving end of noise regulations, but let me tell you they are there for a very good reason, DO work and provide tangible noise benefits (as measured objectively using pretty sensitive equipment). That having been said, I've looked over Miami's airport charts and can't find a specific noise-sensitive departure notice, so most like the FAA deemed the standard noise-abatement departure profiles to be "good enough". Looking specifically at the easterly departure you describe, I suspect what you perceive as a "high-G left" is actually just a normal turn to the north on something like the HEDLY2 departure procedure [skyvector.com]. The procedure specifies that the aircraft is allowed to make turn anticipation and autopilots will do just that - turn early so that given the momentum and bank limits of the airplane, they establish themselves on the northerly track correctly without overshooting. Looking at the chart, I'd guess that they're going to be a good 2000-3000 feet off the ground by the time they start the turn and therefore will already have executed a thrust reduction.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday March 30 2017, @03:35PM (7 children)
What I noticed from the dozen or so "complaint responses" I received was that the really bad ones were all cargo planes, UPS, FedEx, smaller operators still identifiable as cargo. The majority of the planes do turn out over the bay and climb more gently, but the loud cargo planes are, according to their flight tracks, making sharper turns and climbing much faster.
We moved from 75th street to 91st street, still under the flight path, and the reduction in noise was remarkable. At 75th street, the windows would rattle for 60 seconds or longer when a "bad" one went over, by 91st street the noise was barely noticeable inside the house. We had friends who lived down around 65th street and the noise there was incredibly worse, cover your ears to stop the pain if you are outside worse. There were several thousand houses affected by what I would call "unacceptable" levels of jet takeoff noise on that commonly used easterly departure, apparently that's not enough to trigger additional mitigation by the FAA.
The sad thing is, if they would spend the extra jet fuel to fly a few miles further out before turning north, they'd be over the Atlantic Ocean and impact virtually noone - it's what they do in Oahu, you see the jets there, but never hear them - at least that's how they operated when I was in Waikiki.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by subs on Thursday March 30 2017, @04:09PM (5 children)
apparently that's not enough to trigger additional mitigation by the FAA
You can be certain that the FAA looked at everything that can be done, but unfortunately, to the east of Miami airport, it's all built up area, so there's only so much you can do. The reason why they'd take off in an easterly direction rather than westerly is because most seaside areas experience a see breeze, so wind blowing from sea onto land. Therefore, takeoffs towards the water are often preferred, simply for safety reasons.
I don't know why the cargo aircraft were louder, considering they're likely departing lighter. My guess would be that it's because cargo airlines typically operate a much older (and therefore louder) fleet. Screamers such as the Boeing 727, DC-10 and Airbus A300 are practically gone from passenger service (due to them being uneconomical), but they're still being operated in huge quantities by FedEx and UPS. By comparison, more modern aircraft such as the Boeing 787, Airbus A380 and A350 are whisper quiet.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday March 30 2017, @08:17PM (4 children)
Having lived under the flightpath for 12 years, I can tell you these things:
1) The cargo jets make a sharp left when they reach the bay, then they climb out hard and fast over the neighborhoods. By comparison, passenger jets make a slow arcing turn that puts their climbout over the water and they climb (on average) much more slowly.
2) Yes, the cargo jets are running older, louder engines, but that's not the only difference.
3) There's an amazing opportunity when departing eastward from MIA: the Atlantic Ocean, if you just continue straight down I-195 like the trans-atlantic routes do, you'll pass over a commercial zone on Miami Beach and then 'voila! you're over a zero population area - blast away as loud as you like. I understand that at 300 knots, this might add an additional 3 minutes travel time per flight and increase fuel costs for domestic (northward turning flights) by a stunning 0.5% or so. But, if you care so much for fuel consumption, why require travel to the bay in the first place? Just turn left immediately after takeoff.
4) With the kind of data they have on ground-tracks, altitude tracks, model of the aircraft, etc. they can bloody accurately model the noise impact of every single flight, number of houses affected, time of day (night, and cargo especially at 5 f-ing AM) and start charging increased landing fees (higher than the fuel savings) to operators that are blasting the city unnecessarily. But they won't, because this has been going on for 40 years and there's no political will to serve the constituency.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by subs on Thursday March 30 2017, @08:48PM (3 children)
Having lived under the flightpath for 12 years, I can tell you these things:
Unfortunately, without hard stats it's difficult to estimate how accurate your personal perception is. From what I can see on flightaware.com [flightaware.com], clicking through the previous 30 flights, including some cargo flights, all using the HEDLY2 departure procedure, they all seemed to initiate their turns pretty much only over the water and follow the assigned departure track pretty closely.
There's an amazing opportunity when departing eastward from MIA: the Atlantic Ocean
And in fact, that's what they do. Here's [skyvector.com] a pretty common procedure used when flying towards JFK and it takes you out about 2 miles offshore before turning you to the northeast.
Just turn left immediately after takeoff
A turning airplane climbs slower, so it actually impacts MORE people with noise. The majority of the noise is actually behind the aircraft, so if you keep its butt orientated towards the airport until it at least clears 2000-3000 feet, then you will have impacted people less than turning immediately over their heads and pointing your engines straight at them at low altitude and full power.
But they won't, because this has been going on for 40 years and there's no political will to serve the constituency.
All of what you proposed has already been done. The FAA isn't a bunch of idiots you know. They've already done the environmental modeling, extra fee charging (yes, night ops ARE more expensive!) and much more that you can't even imagine exists. Just consider that what you're saying, they've already considered and mitigated as best they can. Sadly, at the end of the day, even the FAA can't break the laws of physics.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday March 31 2017, @03:51AM (2 children)
I lived in that neighborhood from 1992 through 2003, it was annually reported on in the Miami Herald for years before that and NOTHING happened. The neighborhood was "gentryfying" in the early 2000s, maybe by now they've got enough capable lawyers in there to actually get something done. Dozens of ordinary residents reporting the problems to the "proper channels" got nowhere.
Subjective has nothing to do with windows rattling and sound levels on the street that you are physically incapable of screaming over - I don't care what your dB meter calls acceptable, that's just too damn loud, and it went on for the entire time I lived there. The people who live just north of MIA in the south end of Miami Springs, well, there, you should expect the noise, and they had plenty of it, noise and fumes too - but when you live over 8 miles away from the airport, at a diagonal off the end of the runway, you don't expect to be targeted by the back end of 727s for their whole climbout - the long noise events would do just that, point the engines straight at the neighborhood and keep them there for well over a minute as they climbed out. Not saying we were intentionally targeted, just saying that's what they did and it has the same effect.
The thing was, wind patterns vary and what I would call NAP violators would happen a few times, then not be heard for days, then they'd be back again. One particular jackass I remember piloted the 5am run for UPS, woke me up 3 days running (I normally slept in until 7, but this was loud enough to wake me from a deep sleep) - reported via e-mail, got the tracks sent to me a month later when they got around to reading the backlog of e-mails, and maybe somebody had words with him, or maybe the winds shifted and they started going to the west for awhile... anyway, the 5am thing stopped for a couple of months, then it came back again for a few days, off and on for YEARS. It's like they were issuing speeding tickets with no fines or points attached, and the noise problem jets just kept coming over and over and over.
MIA supports dozens of takeoffs per hour, and most of them were not a problem, but there were enough to significantly impact quality of life where I lived, and there were people down around 65th street who sold out specifically because of it. As you say, once they got a little more altitude (by 91st st) you could barely hear them, ever.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by subs on Friday March 31 2017, @10:11AM (1 child)
Well, as I said, most likely nothing could be done. You were just the unfortunate casualty of noise regulations (i.e. the limited group who couldn't be sorted to their satisfaction) - those regs are very much "the needs of the many over the needs of the few". Also, from 1992 - 2003 and from 2003 - today would be a HUGE difference in noise profile, simply because aircraft got A LOT quieter. Again, there's only so much the FAA can do and I'm reasonably convinced that given the circumstances, they did as much as they could. The only remaining (and extremely expensive) alternative would have been to move the airport far away. Given southern Florida's geography, it wouldn't surprise me if this would result in a 2-3 hour drive to & from the airport, which can significantly decrease tourism and cause a rapid decline in local economy.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday March 31 2017, @06:59PM
Well, as I said, there's water nearby, about 1000 feet from my house, and there is absolutely no reason to impact a neighborhood of 1000+ homes when you could just as easily turn 10 seconds later and impact the surface of the water instead. Absolutely they could have done something about it, our neighborhood of 1000+ homes was just the unfortunate casualty of a bureaucracy that doesn't care to prioritize residents' quality of life over the bother of enforcement of the regulations they already have in place.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by subs on Thursday March 30 2017, @04:22PM
The sad thing is, if they would spend the extra jet fuel to fly a few miles further out before turning north, they'd be over the Atlantic Ocean and impact virtually noone - it's what they do in Oahu, you see the jets there, but never hear them - at least that's how they operated when I was in Waikiki.
Most of the noise footprint is when the aircraft is closest to the ground. As the aircraft climb, the noise rapidly decreases. The reason why they don't turn later is probably because they deemed the attained altitude to be sufficient. It's likely a later turn would provide essentially no benefit to the most affected areas (i.e. right under the flight path). The reason why you probably didn't hear much from Waikiki is because most departures from Honolulu contain an early turn right after takeoff. This is turn is typically initiated at around 400-600 feet above ground and they turn direct south to avoid most of the city. The departure charts [skyvector.com] even contain an explicit instruction about this:
NOTE:Honolulu departures from Rwys4L/R and 8L/R must complete right turn to assigned heading within 2NM of departure end of runway (HNL 3.6 DME)
2 nautical miles puts them around Sand Island and about 2-3 statute miles from Waikiki. Considering you're seeing them side on and that far away, it's no wonder you wouldn't be able to hear them at Waikiki.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @12:13AM
No, runways are laid out based on the prevailing winds in the area.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday March 29 2017, @10:59PM (4 children)
A straight runway allows you to land of take off a bit long or short, which happens a lot for many reasons.
This one doesn't give you that margin: You've got one spot, a hundred yards maybe, and if you miss it you're in big trouble.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by JoeMerchant on Thursday March 30 2017, @04:16AM (2 children)
A) Autopilots (with adequate input data) rarely miss
B) If you are taking a curved approach with the proper radius, your landing "spot" can grow to an infinitely long circular path.
As mentioned elsewhere- the crowning jewel of this layout is "no crosswinds during takeoff or landing," but that misses the point that winds shift direction, sometimes frequently and unpredictably. When you've got 6 in line for takeoff on the taxiway, what do you do when the wind takes a 90 degree shift, send them for another mile of taxiing before takeoff? Even worse - when they're in the sky on landing approach, are you going to have them go 1/4 around the circle before attempting touchdown?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by TheRaven on Thursday March 30 2017, @09:18AM (1 child)
If your headwind increases on a normal approach, that's fine - your air speed increases, you get a bit more lift and have to cut the throttle to compensate. You'll overshoot the start of the runway, but you're still fine. With a circular runway, you'd need to yaw to hit the new point on the circle, but you've just cut the throttle, so that yaw effect is going to be reduced. Landing in strongly gusty conditions is likely to become significantly harder.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday March 30 2017, @03:39PM
I believe if you inscribed the largest possible circle inside the Denver International Airport property, it would be so big as to be an effective straight line for most takeoff and landing operations - perhaps a fully loaded 747 might need to steer a little during takeoff, but not enough to generate even 0.05 lateral Gs.
As I said above, this doesn't seem like a practical idea for smaller airport properties, or places with hills, mountains, cities, rivers, etc to consider.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:41AM
A straight runway allows you to land of take off a bit long or short, which happens a lot for many reasons.
This one doesn't give you that margin: You've got one spot, a hundred yards maybe, and if you miss it you're in big trouble.
And since it will be a one way circuit, if you're desperately trying to avoid a turn in that direction then landing will be an interesting experience.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday March 29 2017, @10:59PM (8 children)
Someplace like Denver, or maybe Perth would be a great place to implement this. New York City, Paris, London, Amsterdam, Oslo, Shanghai, Miami, not so much.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by subs on Thursday March 30 2017, @12:58AM (6 children)
Denver's six runways already have more capacity than a circular runway could ever hope for.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday March 30 2017, @04:10AM (5 children)
Depends on how big the circle is...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by subs on Thursday March 30 2017, @11:45AM (4 children)
Comparing roughly equal-area airports.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday March 30 2017, @03:25PM (3 children)
Denver's airport area is more equal than others.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by subs on Thursday March 30 2017, @03:40PM (2 children)
Eh?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday March 30 2017, @03:45PM (1 child)
It's big, damn big, largest airport in the continental US.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by subs on Thursday March 30 2017, @03:58PM
Yeah well Colorado isn't exactly packed, so they could afford to just build it spread out like that. Nevertheless, even if you built a 12000-foot radius circular runway, it would have less capacity than Denver's six regular runways. Contrary to popular opinion, aircraft are perfectly capable taking off in even pretty brutal crosswinds (the kinds which would make standing upright difficult, so 30+ mph).
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday March 30 2017, @01:40PM
Before reading the body of the post, my brain had prepended the word "John" to that subject line.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @11:14PM (2 children)
We did this long ago. We called it an "airfield". It was a great big circle of grass. It works fine.
If you made it larger, you could take out the middle, and it would begin to resemble the drawings in the article. It's effectively 2 runways, so not suitable to very large airports unless you do concentric rings.
What you can't do is bank the turns or expect planes to be turning as they go down the runway. Just NO. Height is difficult to perfectly control, so the touchdown/takeoff point is imprecise. You can't have a bank because it causes turbulent wind. The only solution is to make the runway wide. It has to be wide enough to contain a traditional runway in any orientation. Consider the MLB airport, a smallish airport that can handle the 747. It has a 10181 ft x 150 ft (3103 m x 46 m) runway. The smaller the circle, the wider the pavement must be in order to accommodate the needed space without curvature. OK, somebody do the trigonometry for a few different inside diameters. I suspect it comes out huge. Note that you'd also need ILS antenna arrays all over (can't rely on GPS or visual) and you'd need dynamic runway markings.
There are probably better ways to deal with airport size issues. Having the runways radiate a couple miles out in every direction is less of a problem if you put tunnels under them for roads. (so not totally screwing up traffic in the area) You could also fill in the space with stuff like warehouses and sewage plants.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Thursday March 30 2017, @02:25AM (1 child)
I read an article earlier today, with similar objections. The author added that banking the runway would be terrible, because the aircraft would not be level when landing. One wing higher than the other invites sideways slippage.
The guy who wants to do this admits that he has been inspired by Youtube videos of "scary" landings. He isn't a pilot. He and some buddies have played with computer simulations, and convinced themselves that they know more than all the aviation experts in the world.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday March 30 2017, @04:52AM
Not saying that this is "the one," but, often, some of the biggest breakthroughs come from people playing outside their field of education and/or experience.
When the "experts" are all trained in an echo-chamber, they can be quite blind to superior concepts outside their box.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @11:17PM
It F1. Large loops. Curved track. Wow top speed 300 250 300?? Yeah
(Score: 4, Funny) by snufu on Wednesday March 29 2017, @11:58PM (2 children)
When all the aircraft carriers are circular, the enemy wont know if you are coming or going.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @12:19AM (1 child)
I was just going to say they should redesign airports like an aircraft carrier. A net or grappling hook for landing and a catapult for taking off.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday March 30 2017, @03:00AM
That would definitely make passenger air travel more exciting...
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday March 30 2017, @12:15AM (9 children)
Something *similar* could work, but you don't want a circle, you want a polygon. How many sides depends on how much space and how long the runways are, but if you put several straight runways long enough into something *approximating* a circle you could effectively do what they are claiming - eliminate headwinds for takeoff and landing - by using only the runways which were advantageous at the moment.
Whether this would be worthwhile or not is another matter. I'm not aware headwinds at takeoff and landing are a particularly pressing problem actually. But i wouldn't necessarily know, not my field of course.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @12:27AM
Crosswinds. Headwinds are the opposite of a problem.
And an n-gon is one way to put n runways at n orientations, but it encloses a huge amount of space as n grows large. For n>3, a star-type layout is much more compact; of course it has the disadvantage that runways intersect, but if the main purpose of increasing runway count is to increase adaptability to wind shifts, rather than to accommodate more traffic, that's not a problem. Conversely, if you actually have useful things to put in the space enclosed by the runways, it may not be so bad either.
(Score: 3, Touché) by vux984 on Thursday March 30 2017, @12:33AM (6 children)
you want a polygon
Or for the same numbers of runways in less space... a pentagram or a star of david type of layout.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday March 30 2017, @01:30AM
O man!
A pentagram, with runways made of red concrete, on Groom Lake...
Step aside Kim K, this is how you break the web!
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday March 30 2017, @02:15AM (3 children)
Both of those are polygonal layouts.
"A polygon is a plane figure that is bounded by a finite chain of straight line segments closing in a loop to form a closed polygonal chain or circuit."
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @06:49AM
A star of david is not a polygon. It is two polygons, because it is made of two chains of line segments.
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Thursday March 30 2017, @06:56PM (1 child)
"A polygon is a plane figure that is bounded by a finite chain of straight line segments closing in a loop to form a closed polygonal chain or circuit."
True, but that's not what you meant in your original post.
This is what you wrote:
"but you don't want a circle, you want a polygon. How many sides depends on how much space and how long the runways are, but if you put several straight runways long enough into something *approximating* a circle you could effectively do what they are claiming "
Contextually, its pretty clear that you were talking about a 'regular polygon' (per the mathematical definition of 'regular polygon'). I mean, if by 'polygon' you were allowing for an non-regular self-intersecting mess of landing strips... that would include all kinds of stuff you weren't talking about, including most airports today (at least if you include the taxi lanes as part of the polygon).
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday March 30 2017, @07:19PM
That's actually kind of what I was thinking of too - that to the degree this is a good thing I suspect airports already do it. I don't know much about airports, I'm just guessing, but wouldn't it make sense to line up your strips oriented favorably in relation to the prevailing winds? When you have several wouldn't it make sense to try to plan it so that if the wind shifts against the first one the second will be at a better angle and so on?
So I suspect that if this matters enough to worry about, prevailing practice is probably already doing it better, using non-regular polygons optimized for the local weather conditions rather than some ideal circle that would make both take-off and landing unnecessarily difficult if not just flat impossible, or else be simply enormous I suppose (if the circle is big enough you can start slicing arbitrary straight strips inside it.)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 23 2017, @05:15AM
The standard Canadian WW2 airfield (lots of them still in service ) was laid out as a 5000' equilateral triangle. Sketch it out and you'll see that no matter what the wind direction, you could pick a runway and a takeoff/landing direction such that the crosswind was at an angle of no more than 30 degrees.
(Score: 1) by steveg on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:09PM
Pilots *love* headwinds when landing. Crosswinds, not so much.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by chewbacon on Thursday March 30 2017, @12:15AM (2 children)
Curious if current landing gear and the airframe its attached to could withstand the force exerted from an angle.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @01:18AM (1 child)
If the bank angle of the curve of the runway happens to match the bank angle while flying in a circle, this isn't a problem. The whole design presumes that you are flying in a circle.
So, the bank angle is a function of what? (airspeed, turn rate... aircraft model?)
Assuming you land on the side with headwinds, faster wind means a shallower bank angle is needed for flight. Tolerable... but aren't we back to the same old issue of awkward landings? In this case you need to bank oddly; in the traditional cross-wind landing you need to yaw oddly. Change one and you change the other though, or at least require some funny flying.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday March 30 2017, @03:42PM
I'm too lazy to RTA, but I'm assuming that the runway would be somewhat bowl shaped, with steeper banking available to counteract the forces at takeoff and landing speeds, then you would steer toward the inside of the bowl for slower speeds that had less force to counteract. It would be a new piloting skill, and perhaps one best implemented by autopilots.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by inertnet on Thursday March 30 2017, @12:20AM
Although I could imagine this being hexagonal or octagonal so you could still have straight runways.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @12:26AM (1 child)
This story would have been funnier on March 14th.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Thursday March 30 2017, @02:41AM
It should have been posted tomorrow.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Insightful) by moondoctor on Thursday March 30 2017, @12:27AM (1 child)
Taking off and landing while going straight is hard. Would be brutal on a curved runway, especially in the wind. Constantly changing crosswind on landing? No thanks...
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @04:56AM
I have this vision: Spirals, some going up, some going down. Planes taking off on the upward spiral, planes landing on the contrary spiral coming down. Do not let Harrison Ford anywhere near an airport like this. What could possibly go wrong?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @12:58AM (3 children)
Build walls on both sides of the airport so there is almost no crosswind. The problem will happen when the aircraft leaves the ground and faces the crosswind when taking off. Or hits the wall while landing in crosswinds.
Build a donut-shaped runway. Aircraft enters and runs around the inside of the donut, gathering speed. Then a door opens and lets it out... and it hits the ground at high speed.
Hey, I'm just trying out different ideas.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday March 30 2017, @01:48PM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Friday March 31 2017, @06:59AM
That's part of the design. Look:
http://www.endlessrunway-project.eu/images/the-endless-runway---01a.jpg [endlessrunway-project.eu]
(Score: 2, Funny) by steveg on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:12PM
Great idea. And add roller coaster bars on the seats so the passengers can raise their arms above their heads and yell when the aircraft bounces around in the turbulence.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @02:27AM
I guess it never snows in Holland. While the crews here are very good with their snow removal equipment, the runways are going to be slippery from time to time. It's hard enough to get a plane slowed down on dry paving, trying to follow a curve while hitting patches of snow or ice isn't going to work.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Thursday March 30 2017, @02:57AM
The only people who could want this are those dudes/dudettes who sit in foam trucks all day hoping something bad will happen. I get it, your job is 99% boring 1% scared spitless. But trying to up the scared spitless quotient? Really?
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @03:10AM
Circular Temple to God of Wind Uncovered in Mexico City [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Informative) by MadTinfoilHatter on Thursday March 30 2017, @03:54AM
A lot of people have already commented on the infeasibility of having planes take off and land on a curve, changing winds et.c. But that only the start of the problems. An issue just as big is that a system like this would completely f*** up air traffic control. Planes typically are assigned standard arrival and departure routes [skybrary.aero] which have to be meticulously made and certified for each runway - completely infeasible with a "circular runway". Oh, and let's talk about bad weather. How are you going to construct an ILS [wikipedia.org] for a runway like that? And this doesn't even address safety issues like runway clearance, or logistical issues like taxiing and ground control.
TL;DR This suggestion was made by someone who is clearly clueless about aviation, but latched on to the one thing he did understand - it's easier to land in a direct headwind. Nothing to see here, move along.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @03:39PM
Passengers could just bail out, plane keeps going to next destination, mid-air refuel, pick up passengers with Fulton device.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @03:41PM
and chuck in the planes, no wind there matey!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:57PM
Cue Artie Johnson.
VERRRRY Interesting.
But Shtupid.
Next story.