dodgy-alan 1,587 Posted March 17, 2017 Report Share Posted March 17, 2017 To me it seems like a pie in the sky. Aircraft under take of power inherently will only move in straight lines! Not around corners. Aircraft wheels are not designed to take the G-forces needed to go round a curve whilst accelerating, Wing loading would be unequal and this will cause severe handling problems. Trying to land on such a thing in bad weather would be damn near impossible! I could see this hairbrained idea being responsible for hundreds of accidents. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-39284294 Link to post Share on other sites
mutley 4,495 Posted March 17, 2017 Report Share Posted March 17, 2017 I agree, it has been thought of before and I'm sure if it was viable we would have had at least one prototype by now. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
allardjd 1,853 Posted March 17, 2017 Report Share Posted March 17, 2017 Quote To me it seems like a pie in the sky. Aircraft under take of power inherently will only move in straight lines! Not around corners. ...except high-powered single-engine piston-powered tail-draggers. Line up a Spitfire or a Mustang or an ME-109 on the runway, keep your feet off the rudder pedals and firewall the throttle and you'll be wishing for a circular runway in about two seconds. Not all that far off this one... 3 Link to post Share on other sites
allardjd 1,853 Posted March 17, 2017 Report Share Posted March 17, 2017 There's not much that hasn't been tried... Circular take off and landing of airplanes http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/WI/WI-idx?type=turn&entity=WI.v3i3.p0003&id=WI.v3i3&isize=M 1 Link to post Share on other sites
dodgy-alan 1,587 Posted March 17, 2017 Author Report Share Posted March 17, 2017 Tying the wing to a post with a rope! LOL, May have worked with an Ercoupe, but you'd have a hard job doing that with an A380 or B747 etc. Totally nuts. Link to post Share on other sites
J G 927 Posted March 18, 2017 Report Share Posted March 18, 2017 (edited) The banking would help with the wing loading I guess. A Sopwirth Camel pilots dream, or if you go the wrong way - a total nightmare. Its so wacky I want it to succeed! I was intrigued by NRQ so I google mapped it and zoomed in to a satellite picture of it. There it was, just as John's diagram had it. Only one thing I did notice, there were no actual aircraft there at all. Although it is in the USA there was something strangely Israeli about it. Interesting idea though. no tricky cross wind landings needed there. Edited March 18, 2017 by J G 2 Link to post Share on other sites
allardjd 1,853 Posted March 18, 2017 Report Share Posted March 18, 2017 NRQ is an auxiliary field for Navy aircraft having difficulty and unable to make it back to Pensacola NAS. Pensacola is a hotbed of Naval Aviator training, including, I believe, a good part of their primary training, so lots of low time pilots in relatively low-performance (for the military) training types. John Link to post Share on other sites
dodgy-alan 1,587 Posted March 18, 2017 Author Report Share Posted March 18, 2017 I can imagine the scenario now, foreign pilot departs a nice straight runway on one side of the world, only to find when he get's to the other end, pops out of the clouds to be confronted with a giant merry-go-round! I wonder how many visitors would abort when confronted with such a beast! This sort of thing might be built in some places,(Japan maybe) but you can bet that most countries will stick to conventional straight lines. Link to post Share on other sites
J G 927 Posted March 18, 2017 Report Share Posted March 18, 2017 Zebedee the ground controller? 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Tim_A 997 Posted March 18, 2017 Report Share Posted March 18, 2017 (Checks date on post...) Why only piss off a few people directly under the flight path when you can piss of everybody within a 10 mile radius? Still, it'll make for a nice race track after the first plane spins out, crashes and the airport is closed down. If the military already tried it in the 1960s, yo've gotta ask why they abandoned it if it's such a good idea! I'd like to see the giant rotating ILS too! 2 Link to post Share on other sites
mutley 4,495 Posted March 18, 2017 Report Share Posted March 18, 2017 They could always move it to Swindon, much better than their present magic roundabout! 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Quickmarch 488 Posted March 18, 2017 Report Share Posted March 18, 2017 (edited) 46 minutes ago, mutley said: They could always move it to Swindon, much better than their present magic roundabout! Clip out photo Note to self: If driving in the UK - try to go around Swindon. @allardjd said: NRQ is an auxiliary field for Navy aircraft having difficulty and unable to make it back to Pensacola NAS. Reading the plate, I note that all of the runways are 1800ft long. This (likely) Means that only Aeroncas, PA18's, and similar and aircraft with tailhooks will be invited to the party. It's interesting that the UW article quoted by @allardjd ends without letting us in on the secret of what to do with a 1500 ft rope with a weight on the end of it when attempting a landing. Inquiring minds must know, I'm going looking. EDIT: Here's page 98: http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/WI/WI-idx?type=turn&entity=WI.v3i3.p0004&id=WI.v3i3&isize=text Wait to you see what his opinion on rocket launches entails. I'm going to call Elon. PS: I just noticed that John copied over the whole web page. To see page 98, just click on the page turning button at the bottom of page 97. Doh! I haven't the time right now, but it could be entertaining looking at what this guy can fill the preceding 96 pages with. Edited March 18, 2017 by Quickmarch 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Captain Coffee 2,030 Posted March 18, 2017 Report Share Posted March 18, 2017 How do they intend to implement ILS on such a thing? How will Autopilots cope with a banked approach? How do crackpots get funding for stupid ideas? I have a few! 1 Link to post Share on other sites
J G 927 Posted March 19, 2017 Report Share Posted March 19, 2017 8 hours ago, mutley said: They could always move it to Swindon, much better than their present magic roundabout! Ok so this is a little weird. If you are an American you should stop reading now. Roundabouts are a black art and best handled by us Europeans. This beastie is the devils own roundabout and you haven't got a chance of following the words below. I think you can go around this roundabout the wrong way, Lets say you enter the system on the road at the bottom to the left of the line of houses and want to leave on the road that is a dual carriage way directly opposite. Convention roundabout use would take you around the left hand perimeter to the exit you want. Simple. But you can go the wrong way round, At the first mini roundabout turn right and go forward to the stop line with what appears to be four lanes. Cross the stop line and pass the second mini roundabout to your right and go to the second stop line. Do the same at the next mini roundabout and go to the third stop line. At the next mini roundabout take the second exit and leave the system on the road you want, thus going around the big central roundabout the wrong way. Also it is just as well that that this junction has five roads joining it. If it had four it would be shaped like a giant swastika which may be a lucky sign in India (it is) but is just plane insensitive in Swindon as so much town redevelopment was done there by aircraft adorned with swastikas in the middle of the 20th centaury. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
dodgy-alan 1,587 Posted March 19, 2017 Author Report Share Posted March 19, 2017 You ought to see the one in Hemel Hempstead! http://capitalpictures.photoshelter.com/image/I0000tmqgBQw3FkQ Link to post Share on other sites
dodgy-alan 1,587 Posted March 19, 2017 Author Report Share Posted March 19, 2017 Try Hatton Cross Roundabout on the South East corner of Heathrow Link to post Share on other sites
Captain Coffee 2,030 Posted March 19, 2017 Report Share Posted March 19, 2017 We have a few simple turnabouts around here, most places they work great, except for some reason the city of Berkeley, Ca (home of UC Berkeley the long time hippie protest capital of the SF Bay area...could be related...) has built turnabouts that have stop signs at every entrance...ie...they have put large islands in the middle of 4 way intersections to help slow traffic down. This and their habit of blocking off neighborhoods from the main roads with large concrete bolluxes (to prevent traffic easing by using side streets through residential areas) create a very very car unfriendly city and results in Berkeley, Ca. being nearly always burdened with traffic jams on all the major streets...and it's highways on either side are the Bellweathers for the start of "Commute Traffic"...when Berkeley Freeways turn red, the rest of the Bay Area follows soon. I love turnabouts, when they aren't designed by stoners who hate cars. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
allardjd 1,853 Posted March 19, 2017 Report Share Posted March 19, 2017 There are four in our area that I know of. Three of them are along a residential street that parallels a busy road and are small, well kept and look quaint. As Coff refers to above, they are probably to discourage "shortcuts" around the busy street that is only a city block away. The other one is in a development that is a natural "short cut" between two busy roads. All four are small, fairly well designed and laid out so you cannot transit them at speed - you must slow down considerably to get through them. They're not common at all on this side of the great wetness and as far as I know we have nothing remotely approaching what you guys have described/shown. Our normal intersections are generally controlled by traffic signals that are pretty heavily computerized and are pretty smart. For instance where a lightly traveled street crosses a busy one, the busy street will stay green continuously unless the in-pavement sensors detect a car waiting at the cross street. John 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Quickmarch 488 Posted March 20, 2017 Report Share Posted March 20, 2017 Not to be outdone by the boys from Merry 'Ol England - Victoria, British Columbia, said to be more British than Britain (not true, but it keeps the tourists happy) has a double roundabout that gives the locals, and visitors alike, fits. The roundabout is still under construction in this Google Maps screen capture, but that's at least three years old. Coming in from the bottom of the picture, Victoria is to the South, and CYYJ is at 11 o'clock. The BC Ferry Terminal is to the North but it's not necessary to get on the roundabout to get to the ferries. Good thing too, it's bad enough that all the airport traffic has to get involved. If the fairy traffic got in to the act it would be chaos. We need more roundabouts on Vancouver Island. The main north/south highway (not 17, which is shown here) has stoplights at every access point that are controlled, not by computer, but by a simple timing mechanism triggered by cars stopping over a sensor in the road. What this means is that a single car, wanting to cross the highway or turn onto it from a cross road, stops all of the high-speed traffic on the main artery. That main artery is a 80 to 90 kph 2 lane divided highway. I'm well aware that 80 to 90 (50 to 55 mph) doesn't qualify as a highway anywhere else in the world but I'm willing to bet ours is restricted because of the number of traffic lights on the thing. Link to post Share on other sites
brett 2,310 Posted March 20, 2017 Report Share Posted March 20, 2017 I'm all for round-a-bouts as they keep traffic moving, unfortunately some drivers seem to freak out at even the simple ones. I will admit that the one in Swindon and Hemel would leave me in a frozen state. Going back to the OP's topic, . Link to post Share on other sites
dodgy-alan 1,587 Posted March 20, 2017 Author Report Share Posted March 20, 2017 6 hours ago, Quickmarch said: Not to be outdone by the boys from Merry 'Ol England - Victoria, British Columbia, said to be more British than Britain (not true, but it keeps the tourists happy) has a double roundabout that gives the locals, and visitors alike, fits. The roundabout is still under construction in this Google Maps screen capture, but that's at least three years old. Coming in from the bottom of the picture, Victoria is to the South, and CYYJ is at 11 o'clock. The BC Ferry Terminal is to the North but it's not necessary to get on the roundabout to get to the ferries. Good thing too, it's bad enough that all the airport traffic has to get involved. If the fairy traffic got in to the act it would be chaos. We need more roundabouts on Vancouver Island. The main north/south highway (not 17, which is shown here) has stoplights at every access point that are controlled, not by computer, but by a simple timing mechanism triggered by cars stopping over a sensor in the road. What this means is that a single car, wanting to cross the highway or turn onto it from a cross road, stops all of the high-speed traffic on the main artery. That main artery is a 80 to 90 kph 2 lane divided highway. I'm well aware that 80 to 90 (50 to 55 mph) doesn't qualify as a highway anywhere else in the world but I'm willing to bet ours is restricted because of the number of traffic lights on the thing. The double ones are quite common over here, we have some really weird ones. This one near us is only tiny byt really freaks in comers to the area! https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@50.800401,-0.6933875,196m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en Link to post Share on other sites
dodgy-alan 1,587 Posted March 20, 2017 Author Report Share Posted March 20, 2017 This one is fun as well, about 7 miles from me ; https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@50.8388877,-0.452348,510m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en Link to post Share on other sites
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