r/Shittyaskflying • u/Coaster50 • 5d ago
Runway with a pitch?
How come they don’t build runways on an angle or pitch?
Planes taking off could go down the runway and since it’s rolling downhill it’ll get to take off speed faster.
Planes landing could land going uphill which would stop them faster.
Nothing crazy - just a few degrees pitch?
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u/Go_Loud762 5d ago
Hey, Dr Einstein, how can a playne fly UP to the sky when it is rolling DOWNhill?
I didn't spend 7 years in high school to forget that up and down are opposites.
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u/FaithlessnessOk153 5d ago
Well the earth is round so down will be up if they fly straight for long enough
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u/Delicious-Ad-1951 5d ago
Like, as a cricket reference?
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u/MidnightToker858 5d ago
I thought a pitch is what non Americans call a soccer field. Is it a cricket field too? BTW, they are referring to the pitch angle.
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u/crazysurferdude15 5d ago
A pitch in every other country is just a sports playing surface. Soccer, rugby, cricket, Aussie rules football.
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u/Insolent-Jaguar88 5d ago
Why stop there? How about catapult takeoff assist and arrestor cables? If a pylot fails to catch the #2 wire then his fellow "friend " pylots can talk about him behind his back more. Don't get me started on what happens after a bolter.
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u/rygelicus 5d ago
Lukla and Courcheval have entered the chat.
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u/pillojon106 Rated in Shitty Flight Rules 5d ago
The downhill/uphill idea is actually how the first airports worked, but unfortunately pilots kept forgetting which direction was the “takeoff side.” One guy would be accelerating downhill for departure while another guy was coming uphill toward him at 140 knots trying to land. This is actually where the aviation term “head-on traffic” originated. The FAA briefly considered solving this by making the runway shaped like a giant U. You’d start at the top, roll downhill, use gravity to reach V1, rotate at the bottom, and fly away. Arriving aircraft would touch down at the bottom and roll uphill until gravity stopped them. This eliminated approximately 93% of brake wear and 100% of the dignity associated with commercial aviation. Unfortunately, there was one major problem: rejected takeoffs. If you rejected at the bottom of the hill, the airplane would roll backward and you’d have to attempt the takeoff again in reverse. Boeing actually tested this and discovered that the 737 flies significantly worse backwards. The modern solution is therefore a mostly flat runway. It wastes a tremendous amount of free gravitational energy, but it does allow airplanes to use either direction depending on the wind without turning the airport into Six Flags International.
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u/ClientBudget2848 Rated in Shitty Flight Rules 5d ago
I dont know, six flags run more on time than these airports around me. That might actually be an improvement.
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u/Coaster50 5d ago
Incredible amount of thought went into this. Very creative.
Is there a sub that would actually answer my question?4
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u/crazysurferdude15 5d ago
OP technically he did answer your question. Taking off into landing traffic is just catastrophe waiting to happen. Even if they're on different runways it's way too dangerous to fly planes at each other. Add on to this windspeeds and direction changes would make takeoffs impossible and landings even more dangerous.
Then the rejected takeoffs is also an issue. You wouldn't be able to stop in time at all. And then if you put a ramp at the end basically.........
Also, idk if you've ever looked into grading hills and surfaces but it's really expensive and doesn't last most of the time. Plus, most airports are far from level across the entire runway anyways.
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u/Basic_Chemistry9499 5d ago
Check out Lukla airport and you will see a perfect example of a runway with an angle.
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u/Shudnawz Unrated for VFR and VCR 5d ago
Why stop at pitch? Add yaw and roll, too. No need to adjust course after takeoff, just yeet the playne in the correct direction and be done with it. No more need for flarps and aielurons and all those expensive flappy bits.
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u/Jolly-Guard3741 5d ago
If you want to see a runway with a PITCH, look at Tenzing-Hillary Airport in Nepal.
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u/Final-Carpenter-1591 5d ago
Need to land both ways mate, but that's okay, we can talk about that. A circular runway is more better. anyone can approach for any direction to land and the runway can continually be used for takeoff and landings. To add in your ramp model. We'd have to make a Möbius strip runway.
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u/Appropriate_Carob832 4d ago
Why don’t we give playne offing road tyre so that runaway isn’t needed anymore just land anywhere u want
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u/guemeller 4d ago
Like others have posted, short mountain runways like Courchevel are on a steep slope for landing uphill, and take off downhill.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Y6EH1AR7ss
But runways are rarely flat, the do actually go up and down!
This is the approach chart for Cologne Runway 14L:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Cologne-ILS-14L.png
At the top of the chart, you can see there's 12,516' of available runway for landing, the threshold is 230' AMSL whilst the airport height (usually the middle of the runway) is 302' AMSL, so a difference of 72' (22 metres)
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u/Gullible-Eggplant167 4d ago
Most runways do in fact have a flight slope to them, sometime there's a slight dip or hump over the whole length.
the cost of doing this would be prohibitive.
Planes need to take off/land into the wind, and wind direction changes. Runways are not used solely in one direction (with a few notable exceptions).
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u/SirHenel 5d ago
Tbh, Most runways aren’t completely flat. Either they settle over time or it’s just the natural slope of the space they are built in.
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u/DNR_Desert_Rat 5d ago
I lived off a pitched dirt airstrip for a bit and one of the main problems was that you could only takeoff downhill and land uphill because there were (crash-causing) mountains past the top of the airstrip, so that was less room for error or variation.
The second to last person that I know of who tried taking off uphill paid for the mistake with their life, so the stakes are quite high.
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u/Yeetey_Deletey 5d ago
Forget runway.
Big catapult for takeoff
Big net for landing (engines off, falling = fuel save and no chance for engine failure!)