Aside from the other comments,12 Km isn’t nearly long enough. For a B738 landing at ~ 140 kts (Not taking higher Vs into account), the MINIMUM diameter is 5860m. This is in a rate 1 turn (30* bank). The diameter for a C172 in a rate 1 turn is 2500m…
Anyway, the point I’m trying to get at is not only that the runway(s) is/are nowhere near long enough, but each aircraft would be at a different bank angle to follow the runway around, so technically, an airport with this feature could only accept aircraft landing at one speed, OR have varying runway camber at different sections, which would be a serious safety concern…
That’s true, Ryan, but higher landing speeds translate to more wear on the equipment. Tire wear would be considerably greater, and landing gear maintenance cycles would have to be re-evaluated landing at those speeds all the time. This also creates more rubber buildup faster on the runways, and would require scraping more often. That rubber buildup can get pretty slick when its wet.
Brakes would probably not be an issue, as you could just roll out forever until you slowed on your own, and you could save some maintenance by only using idle thrust reverse when landing here.
But if you kept going around slowly, what if a plane on the other side of the runway lands really fast, and the two collide, because one plane is going much faster than the other
One question I have is what happens if they need to shut down all or part of the runway for an emergency? Without alternate landing surfaces, that “unlimited” runway length just got a lot shorter and more hazardous, if its even usable at all due to weather/wind direction. Also, being able to take off or land in any direction doesn’t mean much when many airports have certain noise abatement corridors and procedures that air traffic must stay within out of concern to the residential population.
I just thought what the airport would have to do if they needed more runway capacity, it would be hard to build another circular runway as aircraft couldn’t taxi over the inside runway as it is on an angle. Another problem would be transport into the airport, building underground roads has a massive cost involved as well, and other transports types have an even higher cost to build underground etc
1.These would be expensive to build.
2. They are massive.
3. They would never be used to max cap.
4. You could only have one.
5. Emergencies would be harder to deal with.
6.An RTO could cause a crash.
7. It would be scary watching planes land behind another.
8.If breaks fail they could hit another aircraft.
9. This would call for a massive airport redesign.
10. Crosswinds aren’t too much of a common problem.
11. Then there was the ‘triangular pattern’ to eliminate crosswinds but aren’t used because they were too big.
Vote bellow on what you think of circular runways. (Don’t like the idea 1, 5 Love the idea)
