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Re: Things That Made You Happy Today

#2
N-Joy wrote:Endless Runway
YES! I did read about this some weeks ago, and as a person being active in the air force in the military, that is interested in aircraft or anything that flies in general, this really got my interest!
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Flatfingers wrote: 23.01.2017: "Show me the smoldering corpse of Perfectionist Josh"
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Re: Things That Made You Happy Today

#6
0111narwhalz wrote:Trying to turn and lift off? Hmm... :think:
Is totally possible. It's like you are flying a circle at the ground. Planes can fly in circles and at the same time gain or loose height.

cuisinart8 wrote: Have fun landing on that giant circular runway...
Yeah, that'll need A LOT of simulator training... :?

Silverware wrote:Goatbot reached 6152 lines of code, and is made of 205628 characters. :D
And...what does Goatbot do? And the more important question: is it open source? ;)
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Flatfingers wrote: 23.01.2017: "Show me the smoldering corpse of Perfectionist Josh"
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Re: Things That Made You Happy Today

#7
JanB1 wrote: is it open source? ;)
I expect it's as open source as the Necronomicon.
Open goatbot.cs; get insanity. :twisted:
JanB1 wrote:
0111narwhalz wrote:Trying to turn and lift off? Hmm... :think:
Is totally possible. It's like you are flying a circle at the ground. Planes can fly in circles and at the same time gain or loose height.
Yes, but usually the plane banks to turn.
And that means that the inside suspension is weighted disproportionally, the inside wingtip approaches the ground, and bad things commence.
So I expect that the "planeabout" will not fare well in terms of liftoff efficiency, unless planes are designed specifically to accommodate it.
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Re: Things That Made You Happy Today

#8
0111narwhalz wrote:
JanB1 wrote: is it open source? ;)
I expect it's as open source as the Necronomicon.
Open goatbot.cs; get insanity. :twisted:
Welp...seems like some fine literature. :D

JanB1 wrote:
0111narwhalz wrote:Trying to turn and lift off? Hmm... :think:
Is totally possible. It's like you are flying a circle at the ground. Planes can fly in circles and at the same time gain or loose height.
Yes, but usually the plane banks to turn.
And that means that the inside suspension is weighted disproportionally, the inside wingtip approaches the ground, and bad things commence.
So I expect that the "planeabout" will not fare well in terms of liftoff efficiency, unless planes are designed specifically to accommodate it.[/quote]

Well, the runway is inclined, and the angle gets bigger the further out you get. So, I don't really see the problem you are describing. Or I just don't understand what you mean. Image
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Flatfingers wrote: 23.01.2017: "Show me the smoldering corpse of Perfectionist Josh"
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Re: Things That Made You Happy Today

#9
Well, the undercarriage on the inner side would get more load because of the inclination.
the inclination moves the center of gravity further towards the center of the ring, and thus closer towards the inner wheel assembly.

So the innter wheels have more load and an additional shear load they dont have under normal conditions.
Depending on how close the specs are cut for the undercarriage it could collapse.
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Re: Things That Made You Happy Today

#10
No, that's only true if the plane is standing still. When moving at the correct speed the centrifugal force "redirects" gravity so it points perpendicular to the inclined track (which is why it's inclined in the first place).
The plane of course has to move outward to the steeper inclination as it speeds up.
Warning: do not ask about physics unless you really want to know about physics.
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Re: Things That Made You Happy Today

#11
Dinosawer wrote:No, that's only true if the plane is standing still. When moving at the correct speed the centrifugal force "redirects" gravity so it points perpendicular to the inclined track (which is why it's inclined in the first place).
The plane of course has to move outward to the steeper inclination as it speeds up.
True, forgot to account for that.
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Re: Things That Made You Happy Today

#12
The main problem, I think, is that it would be incredibly more difficult to land on a slanted, curving runway than it would be to land on a straight flat one - not to mention enormously more difficult for air traffic controllers to get across what part of the circle they're supposed to land on, and for the plane to understand that. If humans were computers, it might help increase capacity of an airport at any one time - but humans are not computers. Humans make mistakes, and in systems where mistakes are easier to make, they tend to be more prone to making them. I would wager a guess that this system would not only fail to work - it would fail catastrophically.

When a plane makes a bank, it is not only turning to the side and pulling up - this would lead to increased altitude. It's also using yaw - a little rudder on the tail of the plane. This rudder is used to make the plane turn left and right while remaining horizontal, but planes bank instead of using it alone because the rudder itself doesn't tend to be enough to make large, fast course adjustments - not to mention the fact that it would probably sling all your passengers around from the change in momentum.

The yaw + bank is very balanced, but normally allows a very wide margin of error because it's used in the air. If you gain a few hundred meters during a bank, who cares? You're still at 15,000 feet, you can level out. When landing on a runway while banking, though... it becomes much more difficult. The pilot already has to deal with altitude, weather, wind direction, wind speed, wind gusts, runway length, rate of descent, etc. Adding new factors that are more complicated than all of these? I smell the potential for disaster.

On the subject of wind, normally pilots only have to deal with it from one direction - and wind can have an enormous effect on a plane. In this scenario, if it's windy, they have to deal with it from all directions as they go around the track.

If it's raining or foggy, things will get a lot more difficult. Whereas with a traditional runway you can rely on various instruments to land completely blind (yes, it is possible to land a plane without any sight out of the cockpit), this requires that the runway be straight and flat. With this approach, the glide slope, ILS and localizers are just gone.

On a traditional runway, there's set flight patterns pilots learn to use for things like missed approaches. How do they handle that here? Indeed, how would air traffic controllers deal with 360 degrees instead of just four to eight cardinal directions?

I'm also concerned about stresses on the tires and undercarriage, which are designed for one thing: landing on flat runways. In fact, if a tire blows on a traditional runway, the plane can just keep chugging forward and get the tire fixed after they unload the passengers. In this scenario, though, I would expect the plane to leave the runway entirely - in NASCAR you see cars completely leave the track when a tire blows, because suddenly they can't turn. Planes would probably do the same. Occasionally the gear collapse entirely, or you have to do a belly landing. These are extreme scenarios, but they must be considered. On a traditional runway, you're fine. On this runway, you're off the edge and survival is uncertain.

I'm also concerned that banked runways would probably limit wingspan... and I see the potential for a plane crashing because it banked too much as well, losing a wing, going out of control, and killing all passengers aboard.

Another thought, while I'm at it - taking off and landing at a bank would greatly increase the stall speed - and aircraft have trouble with stable turns until they get up to speed anyway.

You would also have to figure out exactly what point on the circle a plane should start its takeoff, so it would be facing in the appropriate direction when it got into the air...


I just see a lot of problems here. I know it's supposed to make things easier, but I only see it causing more problems than it solves. It seems ideal for pilotless aircraft on clear days, but not for piloted aircraft, and certainly not for miserable weather.


edit: triple-ninja'd
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Re: Things That Made You Happy Today

#13
Talvieno wrote:With this approach, the glide slope, ILS and localizers are just gone.
Erm... how would the electronic guidiance be gone when its foggy?
(more than with normal runways?)

Talvieno wrote: On a traditional runway, there's set flight patterns pilots learn to use for things like missed approaches. How do they handle that here?
By designing and teaching new patterns? Like already necessary for landing there at all?
Talvieno wrote: Indeed, how would air traffic controllers deal with 360 degrees instead of just four to eight cardinal directions?
Because the traffic controllers dont already have to deal with people coming into their zone from all around?

And you dont have to use every single degree of circumfence, divide it into 3-8ish lanes to simplify allocation and reasoning.
Guide incoming flights to lanes where the wind is the most in line to minimise its influence.

The available effective number of lanes would reduce with increasing wind speeds, though
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Re: Things That Made You Happy Today

#14
Cornflakes_91 wrote:
Talvieno wrote:With this approach, the glide slope, ILS and localizers are just gone.
Erm... how would the electronic guidiance be gone when its foggy?
(more than with normal runways?)
Not to do with fog, more to do with the fact that all these things are directional and don't work well with a circle. I have no idea how you'd represent a curved glide slope that can take point at any position on the circle, for instance. Unless you're flying manually, you'd need to completely redesign a lot of standard instrumentation.

Talvieno wrote: On a traditional runway, there's set flight patterns pilots learn to use for things like missed approaches. How do they handle that here?
By designing and teaching new patterns? Like already necessary for landing there at all?
Good luck retraining all those pilots. You're basically saying they all have to go back to flight school. I don't think many people will go for this idea.
Talvieno wrote: Indeed, how would air traffic controllers deal with 360 degrees instead of just four to eight cardinal directions?
Because the traffic controllers dont already have to deal with people coming into their zone from all around?

And you dont have to use every single degree of circumfence, divide it into 3-8ish lanes to simplify allocation and reasoning.
Guide incoming flights to lanes where the wind is the most in line to minimise its influence.

The available effective number of lanes would reduce with increasing wind speeds, though
Point taken, if you divide it into 3-8ish "incoming/outgoing" directions. Outgoing would be a lot harder to enforce though. The distance planes have to travel on a runway vary widely based on plane type and current mass.
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Re: Things That Made You Happy Today

#15
Talvieno wrote: Not to do with fog, more to do with the fact that all these things are directional and don't work well with a circle. I have no idea how you'd represent a curved glide slope that can take point at any position on the circle, for instance.
Divide it into lanes again or have [many] individual beacons that get turned on/off depending on allocation

"turn into lane 5"

Not fundamentally different from straight runways.
Talvieno wrote: Good luck retraining all those pilots. You're basically saying they all have to go back to flight school. I don't think many people will go for this idea.
Teaching new patterns is far less than doing all of flight school again :P

Talvieno wrote: Point taken, if you divide it into 3-8ish "incoming/outgoing" directions. Outgoing would be a lot harder to enforce though. The distance planes have to travel on a runway vary widely based on plane type and current mass.
Would be necessary to add a fair bit of leeway, yes.
But then, you know the craft type, (tanked) fuel mass, approximate cargo mass, etc.
Its far from being unable to make statements.

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