Airport Runways That Go Underground

Its funny that the super long extended runways at area 51 are probably what gave it up to sattelite or any kind of air surveilance. But what if the airforce could make new runways that go underground. So it doesnt give up the existence of the extra long runway or base. ive heard people talking about how that is what they probably do for the new successor for the SR-71. Which would need a obviously super long runway. it sounds probable. and it would also let the airforce shrink the of the base to only a very short runway, and some rader tower miles away.

I'd say just hope on the part that goes underground the pilot doesn't need to pull up or anything cause I doub't he'd like to slam into cave wall.

my 2 shurikens.

if it was wider than needed then why not? not only could it serve as camo but it could also be utilized in other ways. the only downside would be landing.

A realy good pilot could pull it off assuming the underground runway was high enough from floor to ceiling, landing wouldnt be much of a problem either if hes a good pilot.




[edit on 16-5-2005 by C0le]

Originally posted by Lysergic
I'd say just hope on the part that goes underground the pilot doesn't need to pull up or anything cause I doub't he'd like to slam into cave wall.

I would think this would be the major reason that a runway most likely will not be built to extend underground. If a situation were to ever arise that required the pilot to abort the landing, he would not be able to.

Although, I can deffinately see underground hangers...

Just for my $0.02...

Some time ago while on an overseas military tour, I was stationed at SAAF (thats Stuttgart Army Airfield..) located in Ecterdingen, Germany- which is a small 'suburb' slightly south of Stuttgart and is adjacent to the Stuttgart International Airport.

Anyway...the original Ecterdingen airfield was once a complete working undergound airstrip for the German Luftwafe during WW2. Everything was underground, hangers, taxiways, main airstrip & all. Supposedly it was interconnected with a larger tunnel network throughout Stuttgart. Nellingen Casserne is only a short distance away and also had an extensive undergound tunnel network (long closed off by our military, but still there) that may have been connected to the underground airstrip.

I got this info from an elderly German gentleman that was a civilian employed at SAAF as a kind of groundskeeper & maintainence guy- he was somewhat of a historian for the airfield at the time. Curiously, at one end of one of the barracks that I was staying in at the time, there was a fenced-in concrete 10 or 12 ft. square pool of standing water that appeared to be basically 'bottomless'- it was this odd feature that led me to the story about the WW2 undergound airfield being 'right under us'.
Upon asking the elderly German about the odd pool, he told me that it was actually an air-shaft for the once underground airfield. As the story goes, once the allies secured the city of Stuttgart, the vast tunnels were discovered. Some were simply sealed off (like the Nellingen tunnels), some were filled...and the Ecterdingen airfield was sealed & filled with water. Apparently when the German army fled the tunnels, they left much of it boobytrapped with explosives...particularly the airfield. Instead of capturing the equipment, the tunnels were sealed to prevent the equipment from being used again- and in the case of the airfield, flooded.
Supposedly there are many planes left down there intact in thier hangers. As the story was told...during the day the airfield simply appeared to be farmland with various small outbuildings disquising the air-shafts & accesses. The underground runway had at each end a large pond that could be drained and 'opened' for the planed to fly into & out of. The underground airfield operated for night missions only, while maintaining it's appearance during the day as a working farm.

How much of this was true, I can only guess. But it's an interresting story of where I was stationed anyway. All I can tell you for sure is that there was at least two or three other such fenced concrete pools on the grounds of the post...and an old German's historical account.
Interestingly, also during the time I was there- there was a rumor that one of the floors in one of the headquarters buildings at Nellingen had collapsed...and revealed a large tunnel under it. As the rumor goes, a complete & pristine WW2 vintage German Tiger tank was nearby in the underground tunnel there. Because of the danger of the possibility of still-live boobytraps, the tank and the tunnel were simply filled in & sealed with concrete and the collaped floor repaired.

I can only imagine attempting to fly a German WW2 fighter plane basically into the ground at night and landing it inside a tunnel. Seems pretty difficult, nearly impossible to me...
T.S.

I'd hate to fly too fast into the "cave". Slamming through the base, too many deaths.

It better have a ballsy runway crew. And ballsy pilots...if it did exist.



[edit on 16-5-2005 by White Widow]

The Germans had runways in the mountains, as well as factories, check out a history book...

Also Taiwain is rumored to have several mountain facilities. Makes perfect sense, since the CHinese would pound the living daylights out of exposed airfields.

Originally posted by mastergallo
I've heard people talking about how that is what they probably do for the new successor for the SR-71. Which would need a obviously super long runway. it sounds probable. and it would also let the airforce shrink the of the base to only a very short runway, and some rader tower miles away.

UM.....the SR71 was replaced by spy satilites and UAVs. The only SR71s left are mostly museum pieces and test planes for NASA. Im sure the Air Force has retained a couple 'just in case', but I seriously doubt they would be using this dated plane when better unmanned technology exists.

Originally posted by WissNX01

Originally posted by mastergallo
I've heard people talking about how that is what they probably do for the new successor for the SR-71. Which would need a obviously super long runway. it sounds probable. and it would also let the airforce shrink the of the base to only a very short runway, and some rader tower miles away.

UM.....the SR71 was replaced by spy satilites and UAVs. The only SR71s left are mostly museum pieces and test planes for NASA. Im sure the Air Force has retained a couple 'just in case', but I seriously doubt they would be using this dated plane when better unmanned technology exists.

Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. "Successor to SR-71?" There is none that I'm aware of... Certainly none necessary, with satellites and UAVs, as mentioned.

from Wikipedia
The aircraft flew so fast and so high that if the pilot detected that a surface-to-air missile had been launched, the standard process of evasive action was, simply, "accelerate". No SR-71 aircraft are known to have been shot down.

Some conspiracy theorists have speculated that the true operational capabilities of the SR-71 and the associated A-12 have never been revealed.

In any case, the direction of advanced aircraft development has, for quite awhile, been aimed towards shorter takeoffs, for a number of obvious reasons.

As for the actual length of the Area 51 runways, this may surprise you:

From this page
The paved portion, what I consider to be the actual runway, came first. The threshold and fixed distance markers are easily seen on the satellite image so I could make a threshold to threshold measurement. The result surprised me. 12,750 feet. That's hardly the longest runway in the world! The main east/west runway at Las Vegas is longer, as are runways at most major airports.

OK. Maybe if you count the "over run" areas it still is the longest. The north end over run, which runs across the lake bed, becomes a bit nebulous when it exits the northwest shore, but its somewhere between 14,000 and 16,000 feet. The south over run, including a 200 foot blast pad, is 3200 feet. The grand total comes to 31,950 feet, or just a bit over 6 miles. The longest in the world? Maybe. I don't know them all, and I'm not interested in trying to measure any others. But when I read an article about Groom Lake that talks about a 12 mile long runway, I'll have to think twice before believing the author.

Also, for what it's worth, there are probably both pros and cons to developing a craft that can take off and land at exactly 1 airport and no others.

Zip

The SHARC is possibly the successor of the SR71. Possibly.

The SHARC is a UAV... And isn't it Swedish?

It's not even a plane!

Am I missing something?

Zip

Right now countries are making and might have already made things that can detect stealth aircraft. knowing that means that stealth would be useless. UAV's are good but slow. if one were over a country with decent air defence it would be shot down immediately. this leaves only a high speed high altitude plane as the only option for a deep strike attack were we to go to war with another powerful country as ours. Even if the country doesnt have a good air defence countries like russia or china would give a prototype or some kind of new SAM's and radar to countries we are fighting just to see if it works. Maybe thats what happen with the F117 in yugoslavia

UAVs arent useful? Where the hell do you get that. the things can spot targets and identify them quicker and more accuratly than a pilot could. They can also blow the hell out of them with a well placed missile. UAVs are the future. Why risk the lives of a pilot and air crew when a machine can do the same thing. there wills still be a need for manned craft, just transports mostly.

And the F117 that was shot down was a lucky shot. We have hundreds of B2s, and F117s, and only one has been destroyed.

Current UAVs are slow, mainly the Predator. But there is development in supersonic UAVs that are just as capable as thier manned counterparts. A reason that the Predator is slow is so it reduces fuel consumption and can watch over an assigned area. This is useful for a single most important reason. Our spy sats are in orbit of our earth, and it is true that some orbit with the rotation of the earth, but most do not do this. So the time that a sat is over a target area is actually limited, with minutes or even hours where the area isnt monitered at all. UAVs can take up the slack in this situation and provide 24/7 coverage.

Also, the Predator is about the size of a small Cessna, a country with decent air defense wouldnt spot it on radar, since it has radar reflective material, and is constructed with lightwieght componants. The GlobalStar is capable of flight at 65000 feet at least, so threat from most SAMs is minimal. The Chinese have old soviet crap for defense, and the Russians have a minimal function military at best.

UAVs are cheaper, lighter, and safer for pilots, and there is not going back.

There are new kinds of radars that can detect stealth but they arent like the ones used right now. i bet your one of those guys who still beleive the U.S is a super power. if were having problems with Iraq we would be totally innihilated by China. stealth technology and uav's are good but what happens if you destroy all the electric components of something in the air. this can be done with electromagnetic missles as well as high powered microwave beams. technology always has a low tech and cheap rival. look at our tanks and the car bombs in iraq.

[edit on 16-5-2005 by mastergallo]

All this talk of UAVs and SR-71 successors has really lost sight of the original topic of the thread. The topic was underground runways.

Concerning underground runways, I don't see why it wouldn't be possible. With current known radar/auto-pilot/infrared vision technology, it would be rather easy to have a plane land on auto-pilot into an underground runway. You wouldn't need a ballsy pilot or ground crew. You'd just need some decent sensors, transmitters, and an auto-pilot programmed to land a plane. Most of our newer manned military aircraft virtually fly themselves anyway (the F117, for instance, would be virtually impossible to fly under completely manual control - computer control systems are responsible for the majority of flight controls to keep the craft in the air, due to its inherent instability in flight - the pilot only controls the direction and speed of the craft). Also keep in mind that this is possible with currently known technology. Who knows what the government has developed that we are completely unaware of? Perhaps underground runways are already in use, and we have no idea of it because satelite imagery really doesn't show anything. Perhaps such runways exist in extremely remote regions (such as Northern Alaska, where there's really nothing besides moose and a few coastal fishing towns).

Fact is, if such capabilities exist and are in use, we probably won't find out for certain for another 30 years, if ever. It's no secret that government military tech is decades ahead of what is known to the general public. Who knows, perhaps the government is already using anti-gravity aircraft (several threads exist on this theory in both this and the UFO forums), which doesn't need any runway whatsoever, and can be docked underground with nothing more than a disguised door that only opens as needed for craft to enter and exit.

Fact is, given my own research into the topic, as well as the proven knowledge that our government hides new technology from the public, it's quite possible that new forms of conventional aircraft, take off/landing techniques, and new forms of propulsion truly could exist. All we can do is speculate. I find it highly unlikely that anything mentioned on ATS regarding new technologies hasn't already been thought of by one or more brains in the employ of the government.

What about underground helo or VTOL aircraft bases? I would think it would be much easier to take off and land vertically from an underground facility with a VTOL aircract compared to a converntional plane that need a long runway etc..

Originally posted by mastergallo
There are new kinds of radars that can detect stealth but they arent like the ones used right now. i bet your one of those guys who still beleive the U.S is a super power. if were having problems with Iraq we would be totally innihilated by China. stealth technology and uav's are good but what happens if you destroy all the electric components of something in the air. this can be done with electromagnetic missles as well as high powered microwave beams. technology always has a low tech and cheap rival. look at our tanks and the car bombs in iraq.

[edit on 16-5-2005 by mastergallo]

The US is the only superpower........
And if something is knocked out by a EMP, then dont you think that we would send more in to replace those destroyed? Honestly, where do you get your ideas? The US isnt in the buisiness of putting all her eggs in one basket.

Originally posted by WissNX01

Originally posted by mastergallo
There are new kinds of radars that can detect stealth but they arent like the ones used right now. i bet your one of those guys who still beleive the U.S is a super power. if were having problems with Iraq we would be totally innihilated by China. stealth technology and uav's are good but what happens if you destroy all the electric components of something in the air. this can be done with electromagnetic missles as well as high powered microwave beams. technology always has a low tech and cheap rival. look at our tanks and the car bombs in iraq.

[edit on 16-5-2005 by mastergallo]

The US is the only superpower........
And if something is knocked out by a EMP, then dont you think that we would send more in to replace those destroyed? Honestly, where do you get your ideas? The US isnt in the buisiness of putting all her eggs in one basket.

where does the word superpower come from. its most likely a word we made up. the u.s military has many weaknesses that are easy to capitalize on . for example about 90 percent of our communications come from sattelites. if someone could take them almost all our communications would become unuseable. people who think we are a super power are ignorent of the facts
1. china can produce a military about the size of the u.s. population
2. china has stolen some of our most latest missile tachnology capable of delivery a nuclear load
3. china like france u.s and russia all have neutron bombs
4.if china were to invade taiwan the u.s wont do anything , we dont have the capabilies for any type of prolonged war with china over taiwan

so if you see all the reports saying we are the last superpower is arrogant.
we have technology but it only goes so far. would a super power be losing and will most likely lose in iraq?

Awesome post skifreak.
Here is a link to some pctures from the base, but nothing I can read fabout the tunnels. www.billybils.de...