Circular Runways - what a cracking idea this is.......

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Epping said:
it would have to be an all new airport. couldn't introduce one at heathrow if they wanted to.
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Right, so if you're building an all-new airport, why wouldn't you build one that has 4 runways, which would handle at least as much traffic as this with no corresponding technological or safety headaches? After you build in the necessary safety margin around this thing - you'd effectively need a runway overrun area 360 degrees of the circle - the footprint would be enormous, rivaling a 4 runway square setup now and without the convenience or efficient taxiing you get from straight runways.

dcl0sc said:
Those dissing the idea are very amusing...
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If you fancy yourself so smart, please explain how you can have three airplanes taking off from a circle simultaneously while also having no crosswinds.
 
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SYB_DC said:
If you fancy yourself so smart, please explain how you can have three airplanes taking off from a circle simultaneously while also having no crosswinds.
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well you cant but then again you often don't have any crosswinds of note so those tims it can be utilised more efficiently.

always easy to dismiss new ideas but if we always did that we would never have moved on
 
so forget about a circle and make it a hexagon

space is still roughly the same but you have even for takeoff / landing and odd for taxiways

:)
 
Epping said:
well you cant but then again you often don't have any crosswinds of note so those tims it can be utilised more efficiently.

always easy to dismiss new ideas but if we always did that we would never have moved on
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You don't often have crosswinds of note in many places because the runways are already oriented in the optimal direction given prevailing winds. At places in which wind direction isn't as consistent, you often have an extra runway or two for other wind directions. I see the appeal of the idea - it works well in optimal weather conditions during the daytime without congested ground traffic or any other airports nearby (think about what multiple of these close to one another would look like for approaches!), but then again those are the exact conditions in which the current setups don't really have issues either. It's a cool innovative idea that solves everything but most of the problems it was designed to solve while also causing more.

For example: what happens with this airport when your one runway reaches capacity? You can't build another or you completely defeat the space-saving case without appreciably increasing capacity, as one runway's approaches and departures would directly overfly the other if done in the only space-efficient manner.
 
Not much info there.
It looks very iffy to me.
I'm guessing the negatives outweigh the positives, or it would have been proposed and introduced long ago.
I see our squadron leader is not too sweet on it either, so I'll go along with him and give it a miss.
 
SYB_DC said:
You don't often have crosswinds of note in many places because the runways are already oriented in the optimal direction given prevailing winds. At places in which wind direction isn't as consistent, you often have an extra runway or two for other wind directions. I see the appeal of the idea - it works well in optimal weather conditions during the daytime without congested ground traffic or any other airports nearby (think about what multiple of these close to one another would look like for approaches!), but then again those are the exact conditions in which the current setups don't really have issues either. It's a cool innovative idea that solves everything but most of the problems it was designed to solve while also causing more.

For example: what happens with this airport when your one runway reaches capacity? You can't build another or you completely defeat the space-saving case without appreciably increasing capacity, as one runway's approaches and departures would directly overfly the other if done in the only space-efficient manner.
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Build a bigger one outside the first one? :D

SYB_DC said:
Right, so if you're building an all-new airport, why wouldn't you build one that has 4 runways, which would handle at least as much traffic as this with no corresponding technological or safety headaches? After you build in the necessary safety margin around this thing - you'd effectively need a runway overrun area 360 degrees of the circle - the footprint would be enormous, rivaling a 4 runway square setup now and without the convenience or efficient taxiing you get from straight runways.



If you fancy yourself so smart, please explain how you can have three airplanes taking off from a circle simultaneously while also having no crosswinds.
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I'm pretty sure there'd be wake vortex issues too
 
I can see several possible issues, but one that comes to mind is what happens when an aircraft loses directional control, say the tires bust on landing or one undercarriage collapses or brakes fail on landing.

At present it would probably run off the runway onto a comparatively flat area, but where it would end up on the merry go round is anybodies guess.
Quite possibly it could shoot over the edge of the banking and turn what might have been a minor incident into a tragic one.
 
whilst my hexagon from earlier was largely me making a joke is'nt this just an extension of the old RAF class A airfields (which were essentially a triangle (although more accurate would have been an upside down teepee) with a circular 'racetrack' round the edge for taxiways

so on a Class A you'd have 1 main runway (positioned to favour prevailing winds) with the other legs being long enough to takeoff / land in either direction

this circle to me is just a way of squeezing in as much runway into a shorter area as possible (while having all your buildings on the inside)
 
lurker said:
Build a bigger one outside the first one? :D
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That's precisely the problem. If you do that, any plane from or to the inner runway has to overfly the outer one at an extremely low altitude, at what would also be the optimal takeoff/landing point of the outer one. It would basically add no capacity, as you couldn't really use both at the same time.
 
SYB_DC said:
That's precisely the problem. If you do that, any plane from or to the inner runway has to overfly the outer one at an extremely low altitude, at what would also be the optimal takeoff/landing point of the outer one. It would basically add no capacity, as you couldn't really use both at the same time.
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Make them go in opposite directions just to really fuck things up
 
lurker said:
Make them go in opposite directions just to really fuck things up
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You can't, unless you're proposing that people start taking off with tailwinds. Whether you're turning clockwise or anticlockwise, you're still going to want to take off with a headwind.
 
SYB_DC said:
You can't, unless you're proposing that people start taking off with tailwinds. Whether you're turning clockwise or anticlockwise, you're still going to want to take off with a headwind.
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they could put a ski-jump style ramp every mile or so
 
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