Modern airports face a major constraint to growth – capacity! Current technology projects only optimise the use of the available airport capacity but aviation expert Henk Hesselink – of the Netherlands Aerospace Centre – believes in a new structural approach is the answer
Henk proposes the “Endless Runway” as a radical and novel airport solution to the problem of “vortex separation minima”, and “tailwind limits” that make it hard to improve performance at conventional airports.
A circular runway from Popular Science Monthly 1919.
The idea is is simple – aircraft take-off and land on a large circular structure.
This radical new airport concept is based on the construction of a circular runway with a diameter of approx. 3.5 km around an airport terminal. Such an airport would take up only a third of the space of a conventional airport. Another advantage is that aircraft would always be able to take off and land independently of the wind direction, since there is always a point without crosswind on the circular runway. Landing aircraft can also be routed away from residential areas because they are not dependent on a standard approach path. Finally, the ‘Endless Runway’ concept will enable multiple aircraft to take off and land simultaneously, resulting in increased airport capacity.NLR
Subscribe
If you enjoyed this article subscribe to our mailing list to receive weekly updates!
This means the runway can be used in any wind direction (making it independent of the direction of the wind) by shifting the lift-off and touchdown points of individual aircraft.
With a proposed diameter of 3km, Henks proposed structure is large enough to provide sufficient room for infrastructure preferably inside the circle, even for a hub airport.
This means the airport is compact while allowing current-day aircraft to use the circle without any significant structural modifications.
