zaitcev.mee.nu

I was up today for a mountain flying lesson and the instructor demonstrated a departure from Los Alamos with an exit through the valley. It was something in between a James Bond movie and a Jeb Corliss video: after takeoff, we turned left and nosedived off a cliff into a canyon. For sure, it deconflicts one with the arriving traffic very effectively (LAM is a one-way airport). Sadly, no pictures.

SIDEBAR: A "one-way" airport means the exact opposite of "one-way" street. In the usual airport arrangement airplanes form a loop, taking off an landing in the same direction, one after another. The unidirectional loop permits a large number of operations on one runway. In the glory days of Van Nuys, they had up to 30 airplanes in the loop at busy days, which is mind-boggling. These days, if a loop, also known as "pattern", has 5 airplanes, the runway is considered busy. But I digress. A "one-way" airport is one where landings and takeoffs are conducted in opposite directions. Often that is accompained by a sloping runway, so that landings are done uphill and takeoffs -- downhill.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at 08:05 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 190 words, total size 1 kb.