Circular Runway Design

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United States of America n0el
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Circular Runway Design

Post by n0el »

http://www.curbed.com/2017/3/24/1504398 ... ort-design

As a frequent flier and airport visitor, I find this conceptually to be very interesting.

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Has the potential to solve a lot of issues that are currently there but I would be interested to see how it scales, especially since some of the larger airports have more than 3 planes landing / taking off simultaneously.
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Netherland Antilles Laurence Drake
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Re: Circular Runway Design

Post by Laurence Drake »

It would make landing in strong winds very interesting. If only Incog were here to tell us more.

Also, why didn't you post this thread concept in the brainstorming thread? We could have contributed some more ideas to help make it better.
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Re: Circular Runway Design

Post by momuuu »

While in practise it does surely seem cool, I don't really see the added benefits that clearly. Seems it'd make landing harder and that it'd require all current airports to restructure the entire airport. Many airports either just have one or two runways, in which case that circular layout doesnt seem too great, or they have many more with many more in and outgoing flights in which case this doesnt seem really great either.
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Netherland Antilles Laurence Drake
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Re: Circular Runway Design

Post by Laurence Drake »

I guess the purpose is to reduce runway traffic and economise on space for new airports.
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Re: Circular Runway Design

Post by n0el »

Open the article and you can see the size compared to the big EU airports.

Incog could certainly help on this topic. Maybe @deleted_user4 can fill in.
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Re: Circular Runway Design

Post by momuuu »

I don't really get how it can be that space efficient, and the comparison between for example schiphol (huge ass airport) seems kinda off and I'd assume the same for the other airports. The argument about noise polution is very decent though.

I'm mostly sceptical to be honest.
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Re: Circular Runway Design

Post by JakeyBoyTH »

Don't runways need to be straight?

Im interested to see how they can control the landing in that relatively short space without going into the other lane.
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Re: Circular Runway Design

Post by momuuu »

Callen managed to express what I was trying to think.
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Re: Circular Runway Design

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Post by kami_ryu »

-- deleted post --

Reason: on request (off-topic bulk delete)
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Re: Circular Runway Design

Post by fightinfrenchman »

Personally I hate traffic circles and I feel like this is similar to them
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Re: Circular Runway Design

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Post by deleted_user »

kami_ryu wrote:I can talk about this topic if you want. I work at an airport as a line guy. I basically fuel aircraft, help pilots and passengers on the ground, park aircraft, marshal them out, hangar them, hook up GPUs, etc. I'm working on my own private pilot licence actually; half of my colleagues are pilots themselves to varying degrees (some already have private, some are instrument rated, etc.). A few people who worked here before are now flight instructors. Suffice to say, I am surrounded by pilots and ground crews and I spend most of my time in one of the most affluent general aviation airports in the USA (Centennial for those interested).

So it's not like I'm a fully fleshed out pilot or anything (I'm getting close to my checkride though), but I know enough to know that this is completely a layman's idea. Aircraft blow tires (or get bald spots) when pilots brake too hard or land with a little brake pressure. The amount of stress you put on tires during normal operation is already quite significant. Jets actually don't even put air in their tires, they use nitrogen just because of how high temperatures get.

As pilots, we are taught to land the aircraft straight down the runway. Having any crab angle (meaning an angle between the aircraft's longitudinal axis and the runway) places an undue amount of stress on the landing gear, which can cause very expensive damage. Proper landing technique when aircraft is subjected to crosswind is to lower a wing into the wind and use the rudder to make sure that there is no crab angle. We try to place the upwind gear first (after all, one wing is lowered), then downwind main gear. The nose gear doesn't touch the pavement until we've slowed down. Ideally anyway. Basically though, the pilot does everything he can to make sure that the aircraft's trajectory on the ground is as straight as possible and that the gear are stressed as little as possible. You'd have to come down stupidly hard to cause the gear to collapse, but you can damage them beyond repair if you aren't careful. Not unsafe to the people in the plane, but very unsafe to the wallet.

Then you have to consider ice or even wet runways. In those conditions, landing distances are longer because of reduced friction. Since aircraft are going straight either way, it doesn't become particularly unsafe, but it would become very unsafe if you had to turn on an icy or wet surface. Runway excursions already happen with straight runways, what a nightmare it would be with circular ones.

A circular runway completely and entirely contradicts everything which has been established for dealing with crosswind. The problem this concept tries to "solve", crosswind landings, aren't even a problem in aviation. It's a pretty figured out thing to deal with for pilots. There are limitations to the amount of crosswind component you have for certain aircraft, but that mostly is a problem for small aircraft. Commercially used aircraft like business jets and airline aircraft don't really have issues with wind. At most the crosswind component is direct (so a westerly wind for a runway which is north-south for example), like at Centennial. If you add a west-east set of runways to your north-south runways (such as what they do at Denver International or John F Kennedy International Airport), then your crosswind component becomes, really at most, 45°.

tl,dr, this idea causes 10 problems and doesn't even solve 1.


This is a good answer but honestly this thread is incomplete without a personalized short narrative story from Metis.
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Re: Circular Runway Design

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Post by Dolan »

I'm sure he must have done some construction work at an airport at one point in his eventful life. :flowers:
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Re: Circular Runway Design

Post by milku3459 »

Dolan wrote:I'm sure he must have done some construction work at an airport at one point in his eventful life. :flowers:

And he was Sully's copilot, designed the 747, helped the Wrights breakthrough and captained United Air Flight 175
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Re: Circular Runway Design

Post by milku3459 »

Imagine a large plane trying to land on an icy circular and inclined runway :O
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Re: Circular Runway Design

Post by momuuu »

The runway could potentially be tilted to create the inward force required for the slight turn though.
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Re: Circular Runway Design

Post by Dolan »

milku3459 wrote:
Dolan wrote:I'm sure he must have done some construction work at an airport at one point in his eventful life. :flowers:

And he was Sully's copilot, designed the 747, helped the Wrights breakthrough and captained United Air Flight 175

Do not underestimate the Metis!
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Re: Circular Runway Design

Post by Laurence Drake »

Jerom wrote:The runway could potentially be tilted to create the inward force required for the slight turn though.

This creates problems since most planes will spend periods of time sitting stationary on the runway.
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Re: Circular Runway Design

Post by momuuu »

Laurence Drake wrote:
Jerom wrote:The runway could potentially be tilted to create the inward force required for the slight turn though.

This creates problems since most planes will spend periods of time sitting stationary on the runway.

Hmm haha good point.
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Re: Circular Runway Design

Post by milku3459 »

Laurence Drake wrote:
Jerom wrote:The runway could potentially be tilted to create the inward force required for the slight turn though.

This creates problems since most planes will spend periods of time sitting stationary on the runway.


And other planes will come up behind them in the circle
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