Tuesday 20 September 2011

Where's Derek Meddings when you need him?


This 600-passenger plane operating out of an underground airport disappointed once I saw that the planes would taxi up the ramp and then take off under their own power.

Now, if they were shot up the ramp by steam catapult and then boosted into the air with JATO rockets, they'd have had something.

1 comment:

eon said...

One U.S. airport (Dallas- Fort Worth, IIRC) used to have a taxiway that included a bridge over one of the approach highways. You could look up as you drove under it and see an L-1011 going across, fifty feet over your head.

Most people just tried really hard to ignore the fact that roughly 200 tons of metal, people and volatile jet fuel was right over top of them- crossing a viaduct that they knew had to have been built by the lowest bidder.

I'm trying to visualize sitting in the concourse at this hub, while the equivalent of an Airbus A380 is landing right over my head like a Grumman Avenger on an Essex-class carrier. And doing it without either (a) spilling my coffee in my lap and/or (b) spilling something entirely different- and smellier- into my briefs.

No. I can't visualize either one. Most likely, both would happen simultaneously.

cheers

eon