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THE ENDLESS RUNWAY PROJECT

THE R UN WAY WITH A TWIST www.endless runway -project .eu

Objectives The lack of capacity at airports is the major constraint to growth in air transport. Physical constraints on runway operations, like wake vortex separation minima and cross and tailwind limits, make it difficult to further improve the performance of conventional airport configurations. The Endless Runway is a radical and novel airport concept, which consists in a circular runway. This new structural approach could generate a breakthrough in sustainable airport capacity by avoiding the physical constraints of conventional runways through shifting the lift-off and touchdown points of individual aircraft. This will allow aircraft to shorten their global trajectory through optimized departure and arrival routes and will offer the unique characteristic that the runway can be used under any wind conditions. In addition this feature allows aircraft to operate efficiently from gate to gate by minimizing the needed taxi distances. The circle of the runway needs to be large enough to provide sufficient room for infrastructure preferably inside the circle. Therefore, it will have a diameter of about three kilometers. This magnitude should allow current-day aircraft to use the circle without structural modifications. The project research will focus on various aspects of the concept, including the sizing of the circle, passenger comfort, airport infrastructure, current aircraft behavior, new aircraft configurations adapted to operations on a circular runway, and ATM (Air Traffic Management) considerations.

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Early initiative from the U.S. Navy in 1965 evaluates landing on a banked circle. The centripetal acceleration is created by the radial FC part of the normal force N. Partners: • NLR – National Aerospace Laboratory,

The Netherlands • DLR – German Aerospace Center,

Germany • ONERA – the French Aerospace Lab,

France • INTA – National Institute for Aerospace

Technology, Spain • ILOT – Institute of Aviation,

Poland

Expected Results Efficiency from gate to gate: The Endless Runway will allow shorter travel distances on the airport and from the runway to TMA exit, in low-wind operating conditions. Independence from wind conditions: The Endless Runway will allow for operating the runway under all wind conditions, as points enabling headwind lift-off and touchdown can always be found on the circle. Beyond wake vortex minima: The Endless Runway will offer reduced take-off and landing separation when aircraft climb out and fly in from fully separated air routes. In this way, separation can be reduced to runway occupancy times. Compact airport layout: The Endless Runway will allow reduced land use for the airport infrastructure, leading to a smaller environmental footprint. Name of the project: The Endless Runway Contract number: ACP2-GA-2012-308292 Call: FP7-AAT-2012-RTD-L0 Starting date: June 2012 Ending date: December 2013 EC officer: I. Konaktchiev Coordinator: Henk Hesselink National Aerospace Laboratory NLR henk.hesselink@nlr.nl Anthony Fokkerweg 2 1059CM Amsterdam Phone: +31 88 511 3445 Fax: +31 88 511 3210

www.endless runway -project .eu