Britain's longest aircraft runway ?

[wildcat45]

Not for the Shuttle, but I understood St Mawgan was a divert fro Concorde. In certain circumstances fuel reserves could have a little margin for error.

When I was on Ascension one time, I was told the runway there was a divert field for the Shuttle.

One thing spirngs to mind from that list of air fields. A lot of the sites are on quite small islands. Is there a reson for this or do small islands becase of their remote locations tend to have long runways so the can take bigger planes.
.
Seems like a one shot or ditch attempt to land in those circumstances. No TOGA button in a shuttle!

[E31Shrew]

captainzep said:

E31Shrew said:

Manston, where I spent many happy hours asleep, was / is 2750 metres. Again it was at one time put forward as an emergency runway for the space shuttle.

Current emergency plans exist for Manston because they are big enough and local to receive Jumbos that can't land at Gatwick/Heathrow IIRC.

Anyone living in Ramsgate is well aware of the big Russian freight jets that loom in the skies from time to time.

When I was there from 75-78 all we had to contend with in ATC was a couple of SAR choppers and a fleet [ 3 ] of Chipmunks! Oh and a couple of gliders. Invicta Airlines did try to operate a couple of VC9s but I understand these days that they do fly a few trips out to Spain etc.
Foam landings were fun though

[blueg33]

Fairford is listed as a High Inclination site ie over 45 degrees. Flights to the Space Station were 51.6 degrees bringing Fairford in line.

The main landing site is Europe is Istres in France, Zaragoza and Moron in Spain

Still can't find an official reference to Elvington.

Also found this

[AAGR]

OK, that got you talking. Now, to spread the debate even further, which is the longest active/usable runway in Western Europe ? And can anything beat the enormously long runway at La Paz, Bolivia (which needed to be long because it was at such a big altitude ....).

[elster]

petemurphy said:

The runway at Elvington is over 2 miles long and it was held on care and maintenance as an emergency landing area for the Space Shuttle if ever such an emergency developed

http://www.largemodelassociation.com/elvington_201...

Talk about stretching the truth.

The full runway is not maintained for the space shuttle at all and hasn't been since at least 1992 when they shut it down.

The full runway really isn't all in good enough nick to be used.

[AAGR]

And here's another poser .... how many times did the Shuttle land at other than Edwards AFB (California) or at the Kennedy Space Centre at Cape Canaveral (Florida) ? No - not an exam question. Just curious.

[Eric Mc]

What's a VC9?

If you ever listened to the dialogue between the Shuttle and Mission Control during a launch you could hear various emergency landing sites being mentioned.

The emergency landing sites that were most important were those that the Shuttle might have to use if for, some reason, they hadn't been able to achieve orbit but were gone too far and too high to turn around and go back to the launch site (known as a Return to Launch Site Abort or RTLS Abort). If that ever happened, they had to undertake a TAL abort (TAL stood for Trans Atlantic). The landing site for a TAL abort depended on the angle of the intended orbit. Low inclination orbits were to try and make Banjul in West Africa and for higher orbital inclinations Zaragossa or Rota in Spain were the options.

If an emergency developed in orbit, the preferred option would be to allow the Shuttle to continue in earth orbit until it was in a position to carry out a landing in the US, the three designated sites being the Kennedy Space Center, Edwards Air Force Base California or White Sands, New Mexico.

White Sands was used once (1982) - not due to any emergency but because Edwards was waterlogged and they weren't far enough into the programme at the time to risk using the runway at Cape Canaveral.

[Eric Mc]

AAGR said:

And here's another poser .... how many times did the Shuttle land at other than Edwards AFB (California) or at the Kennedy Space Centre at Cape Canaveral (Florida) ? No - not an exam question. Just curious.

Once - White Sands in 1982 (STS3).

(See above)

[E31Shrew]

Eric Mc said:

What's a VC9?

Sorry....Vanguard. Then they bought / leased some dodgy Britannias. Good to see you paying attention

[Eric Mc]

At one point Vickers did refer to the Vanguard the VC9 - but it was never referred to as the VC9 in airline service, as far as I was aware.

Invicta used a fleet of ex-Air Canada aircraft for a short while. Sadly, in 1973 they flew one into a hill in Switzerland killing a load of mums on a Christmas shopping trip. It's a largely fogotten tragedy today.

[Eric Mc]

We don't get much aviation chat in The Lounge as it has its own dedicated forum nowadays. I'm sure this will get moved to either the Planes Forum or the Science Forum (the Shuttle always causes the mods a bit of a conundrum).

[E31Shrew]

Eric Mc said:

At one point Vickers did refer to the Vanguard the VC9 - but it was never referred to as the VC9 in airline service, as far as I was aware.

Invicta used a fleet of ex-Air Canada aircraft for a short while. Sadly, in 1973 they flew one into a hill in Switzerland killing a load of mums on a Christmas shopping trip. It's a largely fogotten tragedy today.

The rumour at the time was that the wrong adhesive had been used to fix some A/C outlets but I guess it was most likely just that, a rumour! When I was there all they used to do was ship live veal to Perpignan. Owner had a good reg plate though on his car. UPLIF

[petemurphy]

elster said:

Talk about stretching the truth.

The full runway is not maintained for the space shuttle at all and hasn't been since at least 1992 when they shut it down.

The full runway really isn't all in good enough nick to be used.

was that hammonds excuse!

[rohrl]

Not the shuttle, but Fairwood airport on Gower, near Swansea, used to be a divert for Concorde as it's not far off the New York route.

As I understand it the runway is long enough that Concorde could have landed but to take off again would have required quite a bit of resurfacing and a road closure.

[Eric Mc]

E31Shrew said:

Eric Mc said:

At one point Vickers did refer to the Vanguard the VC9 - but it was never referred to as the VC9 in airline service, as far as I was aware.

Invicta used a fleet of ex-Air Canada aircraft for a short while. Sadly, in 1973 they flew one into a hill in Switzerland killing a load of mums on a Christmas shopping trip. It's a largely fogotten tragedy today.

The rumour at the time was that the wrong adhesive had been used to fix some A/C outlets but I guess it was most likely just that, a rumour! When I was there all they used to do was ship live veal to Perpignan. Owner had a good reg plate though on his car. UPLIF

Perpignan was a bit of a Vanguard haven in the mid 70s as the French airline, Europe Air Service had a small fleet of ex Air Canada aircraft based there. I think there was some tie in with Invicta and EAS.

[Mr E]

E31Shrew said:

Manston, where I spent many happy hours asleep, was / is 2750 metres. Again it was at one time put forward as an emergency runway for the space shuttle.

My friend learnt to fly at Manston. Apparently, you could manage quite a few touch and gos down that runway in a Piper Warrior....

[Waspy1]

Sgt Bilko said:

Boscombe Down 3101 meters
Then Brize Norton at 3050 meters

Using the scale on this map, I make Fairford about 3500 meters.

[E31Shrew]

Eric Mc said:

E31Shrew said:

Eric Mc said:

At one point Vickers did refer to the Vanguard the VC9 - but it was never referred to as the VC9 in airline service, as far as I was aware.

Invicta used a fleet of ex-Air Canada aircraft for a short while. Sadly, in 1973 they flew one into a hill in Switzerland killing a load of mums on a Christmas shopping trip. It's a largely fogotten tragedy today.

The rumour at the time was that the wrong adhesive had been used to fix some A/C outlets but I guess it was most likely just that, a rumour! When I was there all they used to do was ship live veal to Perpignan. Owner had a good reg plate though on his car. UPLIF

Perpignan was a bit of a Vanguard haven in the mid 70s as the French airline, Europe Air Service had a small fleet of ex Air Canada aircraft based there. I think there was some tie in with Invicta and EAS.

Just read the AAIB report and no mention of 'adhesives'. Apparently the ex RCAF pilot wasn't the most reliable. Awful catastrophe with 55 kids losing parents in the crash.

[ninja-lewis]

Waspy1 said:

Using the scale on this map, I make Fairford about 3500 meters.

Only if you count the Overrun Areas marked by the yellow chevrons beyond each threshold. Normally Overrun areas are not included when measuring the length of a runway as they are too weak to support aircraft except in emergencies. Fairford's published distance is 3,046m so slighltly shorter than Brize.

[Eric Mc]

Although not "British" (anymore), how long is the runway at Shannon?