Why are taxi-ways parallel to runways?
 

Any airport designers in the house?

I was reading this BBC article and this Pprune thread and remembered that Harrison Ford made a similar mistake. In both instances the taxi-way was parallel to the runway. I believe that's normal practice. Why is this? Would it not be safer for taxi-ways to be at an angle to the main runways?

Why are taxi-ways parallel to runways?
 

Er, to allow aircraft to get between the start/end of their takeoff/landing roll and the terminal ?

The alternative would be to have aircraft backtracking on a live runway.

Which do you think would be a) safer and b) more efficient ?

Why would you have backtracking? Either go to the end and turn round or have the taxi-ways and the runways form a triangle.

It will all change when circular runways are introduced in the coming years!

Errrrr......entering the runway taxiing down it and turning around at the end sounds awfully like backtracking to me.....and while you are doing it you are stopping anyone else from using the runway so it stuffs up the movement rate.

That's possible I guess if you have the land available and don't want to build terminals etc on the green space you've bought (TBF many airports back in the day were triangular in form, but it was often a triangle of three runways, often also with parallel taxiways).

Yonks ago there was a TWA Captain who would not use the outer taxiway parallel to 23L when that runway was in use. He reckoned it was chancing luck!

Then you'd end up with the terminal twice as far from the runway ...

If you look at some Spanish airports, you'll see the parallel taxiways have runway markings so that can be used as 'emergency' runways if the main one is blocked.
The same was true of some 'NATO' runways in Germany eg Bruggen, where although not marked as a runway, the northern taxiway was designated as the emergency runway.

This is not always the case & many airports have taxiways which are not parallel to the runways.

If taxiways parallel to runways are inherently dangerous, then it follows that runways parallel to other runways must be dangerous too.

That rules out a sizeable proportion of the world's airports.

For reasons of space, I suppose. Taxying aircraft need to be kept a certain distance from an active runway, while if the taxiway is too far from the runway, this results in too much 'dead space' on the airfield. That 'sweet spot' (neither too close nor too far from the runway) is the same distance from the runway for its entire length, therefore the taxiway runs parallel to it.

Can you believe anyone even asking this question? What's happening to this forum?

Looking at the OP's other posts, he/she clearly has an enquiring mind. :O

Nothing wrong with questioning 'normal' practice though. Albeit there are 'normally' good reasons, but no doubt there may also be drawbacks.

Ring back perimeter tracks and three runways as it was in the good old days. Solves the problem !

ISTR that, when the Euro Lounge was built on the Inner Taxiway, Runway 23 doubled as the Outer Taxiway...

It shouldn't be an issue if pilots remember that blue lights mean "don't land"!!

I'll just leave this here and duck out for popcorn....

https://i.stack.imgur.com/w8ANn.png

Gauges and Dials, the A5 looks pretty inviting.

Despite looking so tempting I don't think many have tried to land on the A4, A5 or A9. The locals know the place quite well and the visitors normally take the easy way out by doing an ILS. The nearest you can get to a side-step is circling to the Kaagbaan off an approach to the Buitenveldertbaan. Taking off though is another matter. And believe it or not, the jury are now re-reviewing the data on that one.

Why do pilots try and land on things other than runways? Because they think the thing in front of them is a runway. The human brain rarely sets out to prove a think wrong but instead assembles information to prove something is correct. It's very similar to landing at St Athan instead of Cardiff. Solutions? There are many. Companies who have trainers who are scared of flying often prohibit all visual approaches. They might also insist on autolands whenever possible. Their passengers' problem then comes when the inevitable automation failure (due finger trouble and/or system failure) occurs and the monkeys at the front now have to fly without help from the aircraft.

The best is to encourage pilots to fly manually and make them look out of the bloody window. Allow free go-arounds (no paperwork) and have a proper pilot support network that encourages them to learn from each other. Beating people with a safety stick is very unsafe in the long run.

PM