I reckon someone's slipped up and published this story 16 days too early .....

So what wind direction should we use when calculating take off performance?

-Bridge to Engeneering.
-Engine room, Scott here.
-I've got a plane 100 klicks dead ahead that I need to stop. Can you route extra power to the tractor beam so it'll hold across that distance?
-Aye, I can route half your shield output through the tractor beam array.

Would it be clockwise landing in the northern hemisphere and anti-clockwise in the south ?

See Popular Science June 1966

If the military tried it I suspect it was on a very very small scale and they concreted over the grass in the centre and landed Harriers on it.

As for the EU link i suspect that is in the straight bananas category of Daily Mail lies or that it got mentioned in a few lines in a much wider study.

If they were that stupid how come so many of their members have better highways, railways, airports, education, health , standard of living etc etc etc than we do in the UK-sorry for the thread drift but I didnt start it.

I love the mental image 747 driver paints and would like to add the idea of Boeing having to make the proposed T7 stretch as an articultated version to make it work on such a layout

Carryonluggage.

LEAVE IT!!!!

https://books.google.es/books?id=2Ck...iation&f=false



Page 77 for a report on the trials conducted in the USA

Surely it's OK to investigate it for a small cost, just because all the obvious problems MIGHT disappear on close examination, and the benefits are at least promising.

Three sets of parallel runways set at 60 degrees to each other around the compass always seemed like the best idea to me.

I've had an idea. What if we simplify it a bit and turn it into a triangle with 3 runways, then to save space move the runways in a bit so they don't touch at the ends. Oh, just realised that is how airfields used to be designed, we can't have that!

How on earth did this get funding?

Sorry G0ULI, I didn't see your reply

A better idea might be to concrete over the whole big circle and go back to the early days of big grass fields where everything was done into wind.

Yes I know....... but not much dafter and for different reasons.

Interesting experience if you get a nose wheel steering failure and go over the banking.

Or, how about an evacuation, the downslope slides would be very "sporty" but you might have to run down the upslope ones

The ONLY benefit that I can see.

'Bloggs, In the event of an RTO I shall close the thrust levers, apply reverse and roll to a stop over a few KM keeping the brakes cool for another go...'

Back to the real world, where RVR's play a part with rollout guidance (curved localiser anyone?)

One real issue is the engine failure case... Which part of the runway are you gonna lift from? And will you have a headwind or tailwind by that point? Interesting point if the runway is constrained by a little terrain in certain directions!

@airforced: I concur.

Playing along with it though: it would also be very interesting to hear how the genius that came up with the idea plans to implement approach lighting/PAPIs.

Wouldn't you just shut down the remaining engine, and carry on trundling round and round until you came to a halt?

Here's what I was demonstrated on my first flight on floatplane, the ones with the hull in the water, not the ones on floats:
in order to take off and land on a small pond, we made a 360 on the pond, like a boat, during which the floatplane accelerated and then the last stretch we drove straight ahead through the middle of the pond, attaining rotation speed. Reverse logic for landing. Very impressive.

Rather than scoffing from obvious superiority it might be worth first checking out their website: Documents
They actually answer a few of the points raised here (unsurprisingly). No matter how barmy the idea it's still not really on to go in guns-blazing without first putting in at least minimal effort to understand the concept.

Could be an interesting circuit procedure. Touch and goes could be done without leaving the centreline.

To be pedantic, that's a seaplane or, to divide further, a flying boat of amphibian depending the the presence or absence of terrestrial landing gear. Beaching gear doesn't count.