A new idea is taking off with possibilities to decrease the amount of land an airport would need to take up, thereby improving the area’s surroundings while simultaneously protecting the environment by saving fuel.
Dutchman Henk Hesseling, an employee of the Dutch Air and Space Travel Laboratory (NLR) has joined forces with the radical new European airport concept "The Endless Runway", to devise a circular runway that will allow planes to land and brake by driving circles around the airport building, rather than driving on a long, straight landing strip.
This new system could have various benefits:
Careful calibrations have been made to make sure the planes can land safely. The road would have a slight tilt to make sure they don’t run off the edge, causing a sort of funnel effect. Passengers will experience a slight turn.
At the moment, the circular runway is still in its developing stages. It is being thoroughly tested by flight simulators.
Tests seem optimistic at the moment. The research by Hesseling has been funded by the European Commission, but only time will tell if his design will really be built someday. A circular runway has never been constructed before, but we might see it in the near future.
YouTube video by Smart Gadgets Technology
Sources: Blikopnieuws, Endless Runway, metro.co.uk