Wow, there are so many reasons this is a terrible idea.<p>1. It doesn't actually solve the problem it sets out to solve (crosswind landings). To the contrary, a circular runway <i>guarantees</i> that if you have any wind at all then you <i>will</i> have a crosswind at some point in the landing. Not only that, but the apparent wind direction will be constantly shifting during the landing, making the landing even more difficult than a normal crosswind landing.<p>2. Flying in a circle at a low airspeed and at low altitude is absolutely the single most dangerous thing you can do in an airplane. When you are flying in a circle, the outboard wing is moving faster than the inboard wing, and so if you are flying close to stall speed the inboard wing will stall first, resulting in a spin. It is possible to recover from a spin but you have to descend in order to do it. If the spin starts at low altitude there is nowhere to descend to, so you will crash. Spins on approach to landing are one of the leading causes of fatal crashes in small general aviation aircraft.<p>3. Airport approach and departure procedures are designed around the fact that runways are aligned in particular directions.
Yeah. Not so much.<p><a href="http://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1357935#p19415407" rel="nofollow">http://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1357935#p1941...</a>
Appears to be an idea that's been around before [1] - might be interesting to build a smaller scale one that's explicitly for drone swarms.<p>[1] <a href="http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/these-circular-runways-were-designed-to-catapult-planes-1679960133" rel="nofollow">http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/these-circular-runways-were-d...</a>
How would a circular runway affect inbound emergency aircrafts?<p>My intuition tells me that a straight runway would be less burdensome on the flight crew. You set up for your approach then you can go back to dealing with the issues at hand.
Okay only slightly related, I had an idea a long while ago for putting satellites into orbit where you just fling them? I didn't think it good for humans because of the G but for stuff. The win being that the power required is all on earth and you don't have to carry fuel with the payload. You could spin them up on a centrifuge and then let go at just the right time (and angle). I was going to mention it to Elon one day...