Runway Jury

I am fascinated by map and satellite images of natural and man-made features.

In my increasingly curtailed leisure time I like nothing more than to browse over an Ordnance Survey Sheet or conduct a quick scan through Google Earth.

The latter is a tremendous resource and that drilling down in focus when the system recognises the name of an iconic landmark, grid reference, postcode or first lines of an address gives such a sensation of speed and yet puts the sheer size of the world into perspective.

Of course I have travelled in this way to AREA 51, that field full of mothballed aircraft in Texas or Arizona, the Taj Mahal, The Kremlin, the Great Pyramid, Antarctica, Vesuvius and all points in between.

Some of the most stand-out images on this media are actually of airports and in particular the expansive and intrusive layout of runways. These appear as though a scouring scratch on the face of the earth, a concrete suppression of the bare soil and a certain bleakness of environment.

We all know about the pros and cons of our longstanding and deeply rooted love affair with overseas and long haul air travel.

On the one hand there is the sheer convenience of regular and if available, low cost flights but set against this is the overwhelming evidence of the damage done to the environment and human physiology by vapour trails and pollutants.

These issues are over and above the carbon footprint left by the whole aeronautical industry and our own support of it as passengers and consumers.

Projections seem to imply a massive upsurge in passenger numbers in  the next few decades. This may be a bit of hype and spin by aircraft manufacturers and airline companies to shore up stock and market values as my interpretation is that volumes should actually decline given the combination of future fuel scarcity, a perceived increase in terrorist threat, uncertainty arising from civil and other unrest in potential destinations and a host of other factors.

One new idea that seeks to alleviate the issues of air and noise pollution and better use of landed areas if indeed flight numbers are to ramp up as predicted is for round as in circular runways.

Yes, you have read that correctly, round runways.

I heard a radio interview recently with someone from the Netherlands Aerospace Centre (NAC). The fundamental principle of The Endless Runway as it is referred to is that the aircraft take-off and land on a large circular structure. This allows for the unique characteristic that the runway can be used in any wind direction, thus making the runway independent of the direction of the wind and therefore also the airport capacity independent of the wind direction.

Consequently an cross wind uncompromised approach to land will burn less fuel.

Arranged as that most efficient shape that is the circle and with the Terminal and other normal airport functions in a central hub accessible by recessed and subterranean road and rail links this makes for a compact and smaller airport area and as conventional linear airports take up a lot of room the land saved from development could be used for other productive purposes.

The extensive research and discussion paper from the NAC is based on hours and hours of flight simulation using a circular runway and their conclusion?

"The results of the literature survey in this document are promising and suggest that a circular runway can be developed with current and expected technology. Today’s aircraft characteristics allow to take off and land with speeds and low altitude bank angles compatible with the operation on a circular track. The Endless Runway fits in future concepts that specify improved planning of operations, new navigation equipment, and intermodal transport". 

It is a simple idea but to an industry very much set in its ways of doing things inspite of its otherwise rapid emergence from the pioneering Wright Brothers over little more than a century it is a revolutionary principal.

Many bodies with vested interests in the current airport and allied establishments including pilots and pro-flight journalists have viewed the research with incredulity and sceptism although any reaction has been more a protectionist knee jerk than a reasoned and measured response.

Some have said that landing will be harder for the pilots, that navigation systems will not work and that a banking plane has to go faster to maintain lift.

Hearken back to the pre-Wright Brothers era and there will have been those citing that Man will never achieve powered flight let alone have the ability to fly any distance and at little higher than hedgerow height.

I will just sit this one out as a casual bystander but keep an interested watch over developments to see who is correct in their theories but above all who takes and wins the moral high ground in what will always be a contentious environmental issue.

Here is a short film from the BBC on this subject