Very long runways
Reading Flight International this week I noticed that Istres (LFMI) near Marseille gets three mentions due to the use of its unusually long runway.
First as an emergency landing site for the space shuttle and also for unstick and RTO tests for the A380. A quick look in the “yellow book” shows a TODA on R/W33 of 4958m / 16266ft which is about 1000m longer than LHR!
I was wondering which are the longest runways in the world and why were they built so big?
S & L