A poster on another board advised me to look in Google Earth for “korea underground runway”
There it is, big as life. Part of a runway coming out of one side of the mountain, the other part coming out of the other side. Obviously, this is a way of launching laughably old airplane so they be blasted out of the air rather than being squished on the ground. (Of course, the possibility of entombment plus perpetual care presents itself, but I digress.)
Not good enough. I am not interested in a mere catapult launcher in a tunnel. I want a fully operable, fully underground airbase.
Could it be done?
We build a runway in a tunnel. We project the flight path of a plane on takeoff and on landing. We carve out tunnels to allow the aircraft to fly along these exact paths. Of course the ground effect at the tunnel portals would be a spot of bother. We will solve this by massive overpressure to ensure the transition from outside to inside is alway done under identical conditions.
What other engineering concerns might it in the way of my Legions of Doom building me such a base?
Is ground effect a big deal at takeoff and landing speeds? I would think crosswinds would be more of a problem. As soon as you enter or leave the tunnel on a windy day you’re either under or overcorrecting.
I think it’s rarely a big deal. For it to be meaningful, you must be flying slowly (as for takeoff or landing) and within about half a wingspan of the ground (or water, or other impermeable surface).
Not a problem when departing, but could be when landing into that narrow tunnel.
Coordinates? My Google-fu is inferior to yours, as I can’t seem to find anything other than a few news stories and no pictures or coordinates by Googling “korea underground runway.”
Perhaps ‘ground effect’ is the wrong word, but don’t forget, I am a washed-up helicopter pilot.
So are we saying there are no obvious technical problems to building such a thing? We have to presume some most-excellent computer landing aids and so on of course.
This would be easy for the pilot (or the computer) to control. There’s nothing hard about holding a plane on the runway, or flying along a few feet above it.
The big concern would be on landing. Due to the looming mountain , at some point well before the plane reaches the tunnel entrance it passes the last place at which it can “go around” (abandon the landing attempt and fly into position for another attempt). There is then almost no room for error (including imperfect anticipation of wind).
For an analogy, consider planes landing on an aircraft carrier: They have a small target and excellent guidance; a decent fraction don’t do it exactly right and must fly around for another attempt. If a miss were fatal, this would not be a practical form of aviation.
