Peter wrote:
Does anyone know anyone who landed on a road and, if so, how much paperwork was there?
No paperwork in Norway (except the usual stuff if this was an emergency of some sort). It was in the news a few years back, just outside Oslo. The engine was running rough. The reason was thought to be carb ice because all was well on the ground. The police stopped the traffic and they took off again.
I’m not aware of any laws and regulations that prevents an aircraft from using the road. There is road traffic of course, which will indirectly apply regarding the general responsibility of the PIC to make sure the place is suitable for take offs and landings (which it isn’t in most cases, due to traffic).
I read of an emergency landing on a road on an island in the Clyde estuary, with the police allowing the aircraft to take off from the road. Don’t remember aircraft type.
In Germany a pilot can decide to do a Sicherheitslandung anywhere if he feels that it will be safer to land on a suitable surface like a road or a field than to stay in the air. It’s a landing where the pilot still has some options as opposed to an emergency landing where the flight is in imminent danger and landing is the last remaining option. The latter case involves definetely some paperwork and a subsequent take off requires also a permission from the authorities. In the first case, taking off again doesn’t need a permission, however, it will probably take some explaining to the police and the firefighters and the local newspaper.
About 10 years ago I was talking to someone who flew the lower 48 in a Piper Cub. He definitely landed on a highway at least once, as he had a photo of his Lock Haven yellow J-3 taxied into a filling station in one of the desert states. It was apparently no big deal. Irritatingly I can’t remember his name to look it up.
An ex-RAF friend landed on a German autobahn during the cold war and I’m pretty sure also a motorway in (south east?) UK. He did tell me all about it, but I’ve not seen him for 10 years either. The roads are built with that purpose in mind, e.g. long straight section, removable median, interchanges under the road (i.e. no bridges), and service areas which can be used for parking and maintenance. Wikipedia article and some infographics from Singapore:
Apparently it was a an annual Finnish exercise involving for the first time Typhoons (from the RAF) and F35 (RNoAF).
The doctrine is to use some motorways as alternate airbases to prevent missile strikes on air force bases to ground the whole air force.
Fighter jets need such an infrastructure that you can’t just operate them from anywhere out in the woods. You must build some “mini air bases” to support them.
But checking satellite imagery of all finnish motorways (which are rather straight I guess) takes a lot of time compared to hitting the obvious 2 or 3 fighter bases.
The doctrine is to use some motorways as alternate airbases to prevent missile strikes on air force bases to ground the whole air force.
Yes, that’s clear. But when do you make the decision to evacuate the aircraft I was wondering.
Is it an urban myth or did the Swiss Air Force have camouflaged runways built into mountains? No touch and goes :)
RobertL18C wrote:
Is it an urban myth or did the Swiss Air Force have camouflaged runways built into mountains?
Well, we could tell you, but then we would have to…… (007 soundtrack playing in the background).
As for no T&Gs, I can happily confirm.
Even cooler than roads: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-length_launch
Gripen was expicitly designed with off-airfield operations in mind. Here is an article about Swedish fighter operations.
