Is circular the way forward?

[Lizzie]

Hello everyone,

I read an article recently regarding airport runways which I thought was quite an interesting idea. You may have heard of it, developed at the National Aerospace Laboratoy in the Netherlands, they think the way forward for airport runways is to go circular. So in theory the runway could circle the terminal, and enable more room to have more planes at one time, plus help to reduce crosswind. Well not everyone is convinced! 🙂

What do you think, do you like this idea of a circular runway? How about landing on one! 

Enjoy!

Lizzie

[J-Renato0]

Very interesting! 🙂
Anyway, I have read that It is not viable for the current airplanes. A new technology would have to be created so that the planes can land, mainly with fog. Where would be the lights and radars that are at the beginning of the runway.

[Lizzie]

Hello @J-Renato0,

Aw yeah, that does make sense. I'm not a pilot, but the thought of having to land a plane in the fog on a circular surface, wouldn't fill me with joy! hehe.

Good thinking about the lights. I wonder there must be an on and off section of the runway to get the planes from the terminal on to the runway. Do you think they won't use all of the circular runway then to make this work? 

It is interesting to think about this! 🙂

[Andrea9]

@Lizzie

I remember reading that with pride that the country I live in had a brilliant out-of-the box idea.

I do agree that landing on a circular landing strip is stomach-dropping scary, though!

If I remember right the circle is slightly slanted upwards so the outer edges are like a roller derby ring to keep planes from veering off.

Most airports have some automatic landing technology which is like a wireless beam that hooks into the airplane's landing program and 'pulls' them down (saw this on Nat Geo years ago), and Amsterdam has it too. I'm sure that technology will be implemented in more and more airports for safer landing, so I can easily imagine it being optimized to work for circular runways.

The lights shouldn't be a problem. We have a lot of buildings here where the facades are outfitted with LED lights to create changing patterns during the night. I can also easily imagine that kind of technology adapted to landing and take off lights and where the pull of a switch/ press of a button chooses what's needed and red turns to blue or whatever is used in air traffic in an instant.