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posted by martyb on Wednesday March 29 2017, @10:44PM   Printer-friendly
from the we'll-get-around-to-it-someday dept.

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?


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  • (Score: 2) by subs on Thursday March 30 2017, @04:09PM (5 children)

    by subs (4485) on Thursday March 30 2017, @04:09PM (#486553)

    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.

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  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday March 30 2017, @08:17PM (4 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday March 30 2017, @08:17PM (#486720)

    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.

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    • (Score: 2) by subs on Thursday March 30 2017, @08:48PM (3 children)

      by subs (4485) on Thursday March 30 2017, @08:48PM (#486739)

      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)

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Friday March 31 2017, @03:51AM (#486916)

        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.

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        • (Score: 2) by subs on Friday March 31 2017, @10:11AM (1 child)

          by subs (4485) on Friday March 31 2017, @10:11AM (#487015)

          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

            by JoeMerchant (3937) on Friday March 31 2017, @06:59PM (#487243)

            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.

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