It goes without saying that only the best controllers should work at TWA.
Since you have many runways converging toward the middle of the airport, it
is VERY important to not only follow strict procedures, but to design the
airport with safety most in mind, with careful planning and the latest
technology. A few safety features are as follows: There are NO crossing
runways; NO taxiway network to confuse the pilots; NO entrance into an active
runway; runway use ONLY for land, or takeoff, never both; runway headings
that relate to the degrees and directions on a compass; lanes, guide lines,
and turn-offs that are easy to follow; and a centrally located taxi ramp
that can be seen easily by the controllers. Another important safety feature
of this field is that all the runways spread out 45 degrees: the higher
planes climb, the bigger the separation as they disperse. Or, another way of
putting it, the closer they are to the airport, the lower will be their
altitude, and the safer they will be from each other because the planes will
be almost on the ground. Another safety factor is the wider, 200 feet
runways.
RUNWAY LAYOUT
All the reciprocal runways should be off-setted by at least 600 feet. See
the skyshot. Although not intentional, it shows some runway offset. When a
plane declares a misapproach-with certain runway pairs-the airliner will
usually fly straight ahead (and climb at a high rate). It will not fly into
the path of a plane taking off on the reciprocal runway. Of course, the tower
controller can also turn it further away from the takeoff craft.
SAFETY CONTROLLER
It would probably be a good idea to have a safety controller. He or she would
monitor the traffic and, if need be, over-ride the regular controllers, giving
instructions to any planes that may be involved in any conflicts. Remember we
are talking about a super, high capacity, high speed airport that will move
many planes very quickly. It is well worth the extra manpower to KEEP IT AS
SAFE AS POSSIBLE!!)
TRAFFIC CONFIGURATIONS
The most ideal setup would be 3 runways landing, and 3 for takeoff. The last
2 strips can't be used because of the following: Let's use an example. The
wind is blowing from south to north. We use 12, 17, and 22 for landing, and 23,
18, and 13 for takeoff, the reciprocals. If an airliner, landing on 22,
declares a misapproach, we turn him left, into runway strip 8/26. So this
strip can't be used. We must allow room for misapproach and emergency touch
and goes. Yes, you're right! We turn 12 traffic right, over unused 9/27 space.
Runway 17 is a little tricky. We vector aircraft straight ahead, and climb
them. In the FS98 model, the planes go up to about 1500 feet when they reach
the center position. We will indeed turn them slightly away from any outgoing
traffic on 18. (Now you know why we must offset the runways!) This 1500
feet altitude applies to planes that touch down and have to go back up. You
bet it is a good idea for pilots to stay on the surface if at all possible:
this airport has some nice safety features for emergency landed traffic,
like extended runway paths and a crash fence to help in braking the craft
without any serious harm to the passengers. In this design, we can have 3
misapproaches at the same time, on the 3 runways, and handle the situation
with no problem. A great configuration for all those early morning, LOW
WIND departures is 7 runways taking off, with a nominal one for landing. Since
we have only one landing strip, we will use the go-straight-ahead, climb, and
then turn slightly between the takeoff runways, for emergency touch and go,
and misapproaches. I almost forgot to tell you that planes will circle over
the airport's VOR after a no-go landing.
GROUND TRAFFIC CONSIDERATIONS
With all these runways being used at the same time, it will take some good
coordination by the ground controllers. If our landing runways are configured
to get the planes to the terminal in fast time, then takeoff will send them
to the other end of the airport--if we use the 3 land, 3 takeoff setup. So
we have to move them quickly on the ground. For this reason, we have the two
oval taxi lanes. They could go in the same, or different direction. The
crafts on the lanes have the right-of-way, except when they approach the
runway extenders. They must stop and get clearance to continue. Also, the
extenders have edge ID and signal lights; so the planes could be cleared
all the way to their takeoff runway extender. Examples of signal light
patterns would be as follows: 1. slow blinking: runway in use for landing.
2. rapid blinking: plane taking off, stay away from the jet blast 3. steady
blinking: DANGER! RUNAWAY PLANE! STAY CLEAR! (All this discussion may be silly
because when this airport comes into service who knows what advanced
technology may exist. The plane's computer/flight displays could show airport
activity, with special warning signals, for example.)
MODIFICATIONS
The demo software is just a very simple, brief example of my system ideas.
The experts will build upon this, and I know they can make it much better.
There are a lot of things that they know, that I don't! The only real problem
will be the ground control. A computer setup would be very helpful to the
controllers. More than two center taxi lanes could be used. For example, four
lanes can be used: two lanes, running in two directions, for outgoing planes;
the other pair for landing crafts. In regards to the 3 land, 3 takeoff item,
maybe we can only use two takeoff runways, 23 and 13. We could have one taxi
lane going clockwise to runway 23, the other moving in a counter clockwise
direction to no 13. A problem is that the pilots would have to know what
runway to use so that they can program their FMC or whatever. So the ground
people will have to tell the pilots their active runway before they move
them. This means that well thought-out traffic flow paths will have to
be utilized. You probably can't use the system they use at your bank. You
know, where the customers go into one line, and then, on the spot, they are
directed to the empty teller windows. Or, maybe this can work if the pilots
can program all the actives into their equipment. What do you think? Oh, by
the way, by not using runway 18, in the above configuration, the controllers
would not have to worry about any straight ahead misapproaches from landing
runway 17. Just something else to think about. The sky is the limit as far
as this airport is concerned. All kinds of traffic configurations can be
used.
