http://airline-insider.blogspot.com/
Read the Disaster Averted section.
^ Bad airport design there.
If you know the terrain, you'll understand that's the best choice anyone had for locating an airport. Sunshine has to be piped in for people who live in the hollows and valleys, the hills are so steep in southern West Virginia.
Quote from: BuckeyeDEJ on January 24, 2010, 05:30:28 PM
If you know the terrain, you'll understand that's the best choice anyone had for locating an airport. Sunshine has to be piped in for people who live in the hollows and valleys, the hills are so steep in southern West Virginia.
I took a look at terrain relief and it seems like there could have better choices made on airport location.
Not everyplace should be made into an airport. On the other hand, we've got plenty of airports with runways ending at lakes, rivers, and oceans and though every once in a while a plane ends up in the drink, it doesn't seem to be that common. Other runways have big stands of trees at their end.
That airport reminds me of KAVX, just with bigger airplanes.
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/10864975
The photos aren't mine. Thank Google.
Quote from: Spike on January 24, 2010, 08:28:21 PM
Quote from: BuckeyeDEJ on January 24, 2010, 05:30:28 PM
If you know the terrain, you'll understand that's the best choice anyone had for locating an airport. Sunshine has to be piped in for people who live in the hollows and valleys, the hills are so steep in southern West Virginia.
I took a look at terrain relief and it seems like there could have better choices made on airport location.
The state government tried to build a regional airport to serve both Charleston and Huntington that would be placed somewhere in between the two, along I-64. It didn't happen. Tri-State Airport (near where the plane went down that inspired the movie "We Are Marshall") and Yeager Airport are still what they are, where they are.
You have to take a lot of factors into consideration, not just terrain, though admittedly terrain is a big factor. And everything in West Virginia is on a hill, or half dug into a hill and the other half propped up on cinderblocks.
/was a cadet in northern West Virginia, flown out of CRW on WVANG C-130s my fair share
//almost made that same drop in an overloaded C-130, too
///think CRW's bad? take a look at the Richwood, W.Va., airport, which has a 5-6' rise in the middle of the runway
Quote from: BuckeyeDEJ on January 24, 2010, 11:06:12 PM
Quote from: Spike on January 24, 2010, 08:28:21 PM
Quote from: BuckeyeDEJ on January 24, 2010, 05:30:28 PM
///think CRW's bad? take a look at the Richwood, W.Va., airport, which has a 5-6' rise in the middle of the runway
WEEEEEEeeeeee. That'd be fun at about 80 knots.
I saw a Blue Angles solo aircraft almost eat the runway at Elmendorf AFB in (IIRC) 1970. They do a "show" when they show up at the site the day before. This guy did aileron rolls all the way down the runway, low and fast. Before he got to the end, he stopped and went vertical. Didn't think anything about it.
Our CAP squadron had access to the flight line after they were shut down. They got down out of their F-4s and walked over to the guy who'd been doing the hot dogging. The commander said something to the effect of "I guess you forgot that the runway is 10' higher at that end." They all had a laugh and attended to the adoring cadets who had just swamped them.
Sounds like a win for the engineers and safety planners. :clap: The safety measure worked as advertised.
That EMAS stuff is the greatest. When you fly something like a CRJ that loves to takeoff only at high speeds it is comforting to know that something at the far end of the runway before the steep drop off will help to keep me from visting it if I have to abort like that.
John