Watch out for the cats eyes
 

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...es-to-highways

Apparently most of the street furniture will need to be removed and the road surface protected with aluminium planking.
One presumes they don't intend to do this inside the M25 as the F35 probably won't meet the ULEZ requirements ...... :}

Good to see that we are taking ACE seriously. Looks like the FARP and TacATC personnel are going to be busy.

There are 4 'highway runways' in Cyprus (at least that's all I've found but there may be more) near (ie a few miles from) Nicosia, Larnaca and Paphos so it's all been done before.
The central crash barriers are removeable and the roadsigns have huge hinges to allow them to be folded flat.
We all know about the Jaguar landing on the motorway near Warton, but I understand at least one stretch of the A1 just north of Woolfox Lodge (disused Bloodhound site) was evaluated but never implemented.

How many miles of perfectly straight motorway does the UK actually possess? Was this planned for in the construction of our motorways?

There’s a long straight section of the A74(M) south of jct 16 which has runway “written” all over it.

Surely the issue isn't the cats eyes and street furniture but the potholes and FOD hazards that you find along most stretches of UK motorways?

FOOD and red kites...

No $£it, Sherlock. There was concern amongst many of us as soon as the expression “The Peace Dividend” was first used by a certain “Middle East Peace Envoy”.

The UK came relatively late to Motorways, and benefitted from the experience in other countries that lengthy straight sections tended to have a higher accident rate, and thus a series of gentle curves is part of the design where practical.

There are a considerable range of objects that would impinge on any runway use, not least that the current specification for the centre divider has moved on to a concrete wall several feet high, which many will have noticed are being progressively fitted across the network, and because the wall is impervious there are substantial drainage channels and covers either side.. Likewise information and routing signs have developed from being at the side of the road to being cantilevered out over it, to overcome being shielded from outer lane traffic by platoons of high trucks.

There are quite a range of countries which say they have this approach, which when I look at them seem quite impractical to change over. About the only chance of doing it effectively would be incorporating such provision in the initial design - and of course we don't design or build new motorways in the UK any more.

The UK came relatively late to Motorways, and benefitted from the experience in other countries that lengthy straight sections tended to have a higher accident rate, and thus a series of gentle curves is part of the design where practical.

There are a considerable range of objects that would impinge on any runway use, not least that the current specification for the centre divider has moved on to a concrete wall several feet high, which many will have noticed are being progressively fitted across the network, and because the wall is impervious there are substantial drainage channels and covers either side.. Likewise information and routing signs have developed from being at the side of the road to being cantilevered out over it, to overcome being shielded from outer lane traffic by platoons of high trucks.

There are quite a range of countries which say they have this approach at given points, which when I look at them seem quite impractical to change over. About the only chance of doing it effectively would be incorporating such provision in the initial design - and of course we don't design or build new motorways in the UK any more.

Meanwhile, 80 years ago.... SWEDISH ROADS AS RUNWAYS—U.S. AND U.K. TOO? :ok:

Jack

Interestingly the stretch I referred to above has an easily removed wire divider. No bridges and no gantries…

Reckon it was planned that way.

The standard height for a motorway gantry is 5.03m apparently. As far as I can find out the height of a Typhoon is 5.28m.

Apparently the M55 has a long enough straight section to allow a Jaguar to take off and land.

Ah, but the Jaguar is only 4.89m high!

Nicola Sturgeon planning her escape route for when she decants to France like all the other Scottish escapers have done over the years.

Maybe a section of he M5, just south of Gloucester, was built along the main runway of the Gloster aircraft factory?

Putting AM2 on a road surface rather defeats the object, I would have thought. I imagine that those strips would fairly rapidly be identified by the bad guys and taken out. There is also the support train to consider. This was established and exercised continuously in RAF(G) with the Harrier Force and worked very well BUT it was expensive in both manpower and logistics, requiring extensive Royal Engineer, Tac Supply and Royal Signals support.

The Germany exercise sites were mainly grass, although PSA1 matting was also used over plough or soft ground. The war sites were exclusively hard surface and mainly 32’ wide roads, with provision of a 60’ square VL pad close to the aircraft hides. These hides and the admin/support areas were normally located in an industrial or residential setting, which would be tricky on a motorway.

Methinks it is someone’s “good idea” (rather like the Jaguar episode) and not a serious concept.

Mog

We have zillions of Ex WW2 airfields scattered around the country, many with the remains of a runway in place and industrial units scattered around the edges. If I was a planner I would ensue an industrial unit was aircraft sized and that the runway was adequately refurbished for ops but left with "removable" weeds in place.

It would also be sensible to STOP the breaking up of runways (usually for sale as hardcore) whenever a base is sold. Oh, and also stop the army building barrack blocks and fenced vehicle parks on them.

ISTR that motorways can't/couldn't/don't have perfectly straight stretches of more than a mile. As indicated by WHBM, this was to keep us awake! At least, that's according to WSBIAPTM.*

What about Oz? They seem to have straight roads that go on for ever.....

[Edited to add:]. Dr Google says Oz's longest stretch is 91 miles!!!




* What Some Bloke In A Pub Told Me.

odd place to have a "secret" runway................

The English don't like straight roads - look at any set of field boundaries, housing developments, city centres, country lanes, roads - they never caught the habit from the Romans

Like the palm trees here?

https://primary.jwwb.nl/public/u/q/c...cale&width=703

Certainly some FOD along the sides of some motorways, but I have to say I cannot recall ever seeing a pothole in a motorway. It always amazes me how good the road surface is on motorways, and particularly the drainage - you very rarely find any patches of standing water, even in the heaviest rain conditions.

The A361 around Frome has a built in ski jump -a dead straight section that goe
s down hill from the roundabouts at both ends perfect for f35s.

My gardening experience tells me this is the most impractical of all the ones here ...

"The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road." G K Chesterton I think.

N

[Edited to add:]. Dr Google says Oz's longest stretch is 91 miles!!!

It is , and have driven it a few times, going to Western Australia and back. Pretty boring , with not much scenery, except dead kangaroos.

From a time before aircraft flew:

The narrow ways of English folk
Are not for such as we;
They bear the long-accustomed yoke
Of staid conservancy:
But all our roads are new and strange,
And through our blood there runs
The vagabonding love of change
That drove us westward of the range
And westward of the suns.

A B Paterson 1901

I think Dr Google is wrong. Bourke-Nyngan in NSW is 204 km, minus a little bit for a kink at each end. I'm told the road has deliberate changes of grade (+/- 1%) to assist with drainage, something that's only an occasional problem there.

Not for the first time Hydromet.

As Abraham Lincoln said: " Don't believe everything you read on the Internet"...

[Serious bit] Given the long straight roads in Oz, is there evidence of any/many drivers falling asleep? [I won't ask Google!]

Sorry Hydromet but that road has curves in a few places like Coolabah ( to avoid the tree) and a kink at Mulga Creek. Whereas the Eyre highway east of Balladonia is 90 miles or 146.6k dead straight when I drove it a few months ago.

Was that for deployed Jags using the Earth curvature take off technique?

Do You know why i stopped you sir

It worked for me.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....501f121b1.jpeg

Meanwhile a normal operation for the Flying Doctor is to land on any number of areas on the Eyre Highway:


https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....7a1a57346f.jpg

Teeteringhead

Accidents caused by fatigue do occur but aren’t that common up our way.

Alcohol, stupidity and poor road surfaces are greater contributors.

When we transitioned from open speed limits to 130km/h, fatigue did become a much greater problem for me. The old system had you driving to the conditions, which meant paying attention. The newer arrangements saw you setting cruise control and fighting boredom (until you hit that section that should have been re-signed as 60 km/h. ). Darwin to Alice Springs also went from being a comfortable 12 hour day to 15 hours if lucky.

Thinking on it, perhaps the accident toll is kept down by the amount of time you have to spend stuck behind caravans doing 50 km/h under the speed limit.

Chatting to the fire crews in the Alice, they confirmed that the accident rate decreased when the highway was de-restricted since a) vehicles weren't bunched up behind the slow movers and b) drivers were driving to the conditions and picking their comfortable speed.

Needless to say some mindless nongs got in at the next election and whacked back on the 130 limit; and the accident rate went back up :mad:

Getting back to the aviation content, I'm not sure the Stuart is wide enough nor the best for stiff wing operations but I stand to be corrected?


https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....8dd623ec7.jpeg

The Jaguar pilot was hogging the fast lane?

The main runway at Burtonwood is now part of the M62 I believe...