So circular runways are this weeks novel technology story.
Sounds nice except that basically you're asking a pilot to land while turning the aircraft. This is obvious given that the runway is circular. You're also asking the pilot to deal with an ever changing crosswind as they approach and complete touchdown. This is not easy.
The circular runway is banked so the outside edge is higher than the inside edge. Car test rings are the same. The banking uses gravity to pull the car into the corner and so you can drive round the ring with the steering wheel facing forward. However, for any given car/tyre/ring combination there's only one speed at which this happens. It's going to take some interesting tuning to get this to work with many different types of aircraft.
Also, when there are crosswinds I think the wind going over the outer raised lip of the runway ring would create some interesting turbulence.
I don't think circular runways are in our future...
Sounds nice except that basically you're asking a pilot to land while turning the aircraft. This is obvious given that the runway is circular. You're also asking the pilot to deal with an ever changing crosswind as they approach and complete touchdown. This is not easy.
The circular runway is banked so the outside edge is higher than the inside edge. Car test rings are the same. The banking uses gravity to pull the car into the corner and so you can drive round the ring with the steering wheel facing forward. However, for any given car/tyre/ring combination there's only one speed at which this happens. It's going to take some interesting tuning to get this to work with many different types of aircraft.
Also, when there are crosswinds I think the wind going over the outer raised lip of the runway ring would create some interesting turbulence.
I don't think circular runways are in our future...
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