Who needs runways?
 

http://www.cbc.ca/cp/Oddities/070126/K012617AU.html


Piesupper

Seen an aerial shot of this he landed on the grass central resveration funnly the one thing they teach you never to try IE land on a road and now hes got to explain a double engine failure. Fuel maybe poor him

I think I'd prefer the opportunity to explain a double engine failure than the obvious alternative.

Well done for spotting that Piesupper!


I might be mistaken here, but in a twin the aeroplane would be out of balance, and so it could be that he didn't have enough range with the fuel he had to continue with the one engine. Could be fuel, could be carb icing I suppose.

We weren't taught not to land on a road in an engine failure. In fact we were taught that in the envent of rough running, to track a road.

T.

i have a friend who did his ppl in florida and was taught to go for a road in the event of an engine failure.

apparantly over there they are built in such a way as to have a certain proportion of them straight, and the central reservation is supposed to be wide enough to take a light aircraft, specifically incase an aircraft has an engine failure.

Who needs runways?
 

I don't!!

I was taught to go for a nice playing field but near a road so the engineers would have easy access! In reality, the engineers would be the last thing on my mind in the event of an engine failure.

Cheers

Whirls

I done my skills test in Florida, when i was told i had an engine failure I was asked where am I going to land. I said "the huge interstate below me"

It seemed enough to satisfy the examiner.

At the end of the day I guess it depends on the terrain around you. And time of year. For instance I would not fancy landing on a field in the middle of the wet season, harvest time, or plough the field ready for planting time. But then again UK motorways are always bumber to bumper. And tiny roads have power line for phones strung accross them.

I was told that it's nothing to do with an aircraft engine failure - it's for civil defense reasons. In times of civil unrest, the interstates can be used as landing/takeoff facilities for the military.

Same idea as in Blighty where last century there was a habit of building subterranean public conveniences at major intersections (at least in scotland) to be used by the police as bunkers/control points if there was ever a riot/civil war etc.

hi slopey,

seems a more logical explination.

do you think they'll build the awpr straight enough to land on?

straightlevel :)

(In Florida it can be a case of either landing in a swamp and being eaten by the alligators, ditching in the sea, or landing on an interstate with lovely 'runway markings' all the way down them)

So in a state of emergency are roads acceptable as a landing point in the UK? I'd expect they are.

I think a 'playing field' may be best avoided, as it is not an acceptable 'land clear' point in a built up area if my Aviation Law memory serves be correctly. However, in the event of an engine failure options can become very limited very quickly.

T.

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you forgot to add...
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:E

Given the usual M.O, the city council will put a roundabout (with pedestrian crossings on the exits) every 500 yards, so it'll probably be a bit bumpy!

can someone enlighten me as to what an awpr is
Thanks David

And in Finland ... there are stretches of road that appear to have been built to take jet fighters.

Probably just as well, because otherwise you'd have a choice between the trees and the lakes. (An instructor on Vancouver Island once told me to go for the trees if I were ever faced with that choice, as people do odd things when suddenly immersed in water just above freezing point, such as swim into the tail of the aircraft and drown rather than swim out of the door.)

Well i fly South East England and i you find a straight road there it full of cars road furniture ready and waiting to take your wing of ill stick with fields or Golf Courses with nice 400 yard fairways with a nice smooth grass parking spot at the end

You lot obviously haven't visited Cyprus. Try the motorway from Limassol to Nicosia (2 sections), and from Limassol to Larnaca (one section) all about 2000m long. On the latter motorway, the place to look is about 1/2 mile from the point where the Nicosia motorway diverges. You see the road signs have huge hinges at the bottom, the central crash barrier is just pushed in to road surface on short poles so it's easily removed, there are strange rectangular white markings on the road surface, and large rectangular concrete areas near the white markings either side of the road. I only really noticed when a Cypriot friend I was travelling with kept asking 'could you land an F16 on this bit?'

Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route.

A new bypass which is supposed to solve the congestion in and out of Aberdeen - which it probably won't.

in sweden, i believe, their highways are built to double as runways for their saabs.

Nuts - I always liked that one. I found the official debunking here btw: http://www.tfhrc.gov/pubrds/mayjun00/onemileinfive.htm