[srigi]

Under one of the original articles, in the comments section some military pilot pointed that lateral forces on big airliner on this runway would break the fuselage and gear of the plane. I'm disappointed that this argument wasn't addressed in todays article.

[nikcub]

Given a radius of a curve and bank angle it is simple to calculate what the minimum required speed is to have 0 lateral force

[rpmcmurphy]

If only airplanes all landed and took off at the same speed. Actual take off and landing speeds will vary depending on the aircraft's characteristics, fuel/passenger load, wind conditions, and density altitude (which varies depending on temperature and humidity). So the idea that you could build a runway with a bank angle that produces 0 lateral force for all aircraft is just not possible. Sorry.

[alejohausner]

Why couldn't the runway adapt to these conditions? Why not arrange gigantic superfast hydraulic jacks all along the track, to vary the runway's tilt, according to the needs of the current aircraft? Oh and very flexible and strong runway materials to handle the change in circumference. As long as there were no power failures, this would be a piece of cake.

Frankly, the circular design isn't ambitious enough, as initially proposed.

[htwillie]

Yeah - make a huge rotating disc of a runway that rotates at a constant speed, so the pilot can stick the landing at whatever radius has an angular velocity equal to groundspeed.

Then slow down the disk enough to allow taxiing toward the center exit drain.

[astrodust]

It's not going to be as big a deal as, say, clipping a wing.