Nate Posted December 14, 2007 Share Posted December 14, 2007 Title says it all - a picture on airliners.net of a Finnish F/A-18D landing on the highway reminded me to ask. There's also a great picture of an F-16 with a stop sign in the foreground on there somewhere. Just looking for a list, but interesting pics are always fun Quote Link to post Share on other sites
janman Posted December 14, 2007 Share Posted December 14, 2007 Don't have any pics, but the Swedes do it as well. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ChernayaAkula Posted December 14, 2007 Share Posted December 14, 2007 (edited) I believe the Swiss do it as well. There are some cool pics of traffic lights with cars having to stop and the Hornets rolling by. Too cool! I'm pretty sure it was intended to use German highways in case of a NATO-Warsaw Pact clash. There are pics of SEPECAT Jaguars and A-10 doing that in exercises. On the Autobahn 44 between Kassel and Dortmund there's a very long stretch of highway specially prepared for events like that. The overall length is about 4kms of perfectly straight runway (measured it on a route-calculating site). The barrier between the lanes can be dismantled and the area between the two lanes is also paved (which usually isn't the case). Then there are rather large lay-bys (again bigger then it's usually the case) at either end of the "runway" as stands and arming/refuelling points for the aircraft. The lamp posts there can also be dismantled to clear the wings. Cool, I found it in Google maps. CLICKY. And I've read that the RAF wanted to operate Harriers from shopping mall parking lots. In fact, a lot of the German infra-structure incorporated such things to cater for an anticipated Soviet attack. Road-side ditches have less steep slopes on the eastern sides to facilitate counter-attacks by NATO tanks and steeper slopes on the western sides to hamper Soviet tanks. Bridges had built-in "blow up HERE" points and there were hidden ammo dumps in the forests. Thankfully, those never had to be used! EDIT: Did some diggin'. HERE's an interesting link regarding use of a highway as a runway. It is in German, but Google may help translating. Pics from link above: I'm pretty sure I've seen pics of Jaguars doing that as well. YET ANOTHER EDIT: Found on the SAAB History homepage: The waretime basesThe waretime bases between the two lakes Vänern and Vättern played an important role during the Cold War. One way to protect the aircraft was dispersion and regular roads were used for taking off and landing. In this region there was a great number of war bases. The precise location and infrastructure was highly restricted. Viggen was constructed to be able to take off and land from short runways. A strong engine (about 80,000 hp) together with delta wing and a canard wing made it possible for the aircraft to take off from a short distance. To be able to stop quickly the aircraft was equipped with a highly effective thrust reversing system. In the early eighties road number 44 was rebuilt to contain four short runways (17 x 800 meters). Along the road a large number of turn-around-sites for reaming and refueling were built. These short runways are still used today for training, landing and taking off with Gripen and Hercules as preparation for international operations under adverse conditions. Wow! Edited December 14, 2007 by ChernayaAkula Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Trigger Posted December 14, 2007 Share Posted December 14, 2007 I've seen pix of USMC Harriers operating from roads as well. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Trigger Posted December 14, 2007 Share Posted December 14, 2007 the Swedes do it as well. Found a pic of a Gripen. That's not something most of us see every day looking out the front door. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Wolf_el_Real Posted December 14, 2007 Share Posted December 14, 2007 Chilean and Argentinean Air Forces practice that also. Regards Quote Link to post Share on other sites
janman Posted December 14, 2007 Share Posted December 14, 2007 Interesting facts and photos, CA. The highway strips the FinAF mostly is using are really made for that purpose having long, very wide and straight runway lines embedded as part of a normal highway. There was a couple of nice photos from some excercise involving our F-18s in an article by a certain international aviation magazine, the name of which escapes me at the moment (AFM, Combat Aircraft...?) Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Nate Posted December 14, 2007 Author Share Posted December 14, 2007 I love the pics of the A-10! Here's the Norwegian F-16 in front of a stop sign Airliners.net Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Iron Eagle Posted December 14, 2007 Share Posted December 14, 2007 ROCAF does it too. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Andrew D. the Jolly Rogers guy Posted December 14, 2007 Share Posted December 14, 2007 Found a pic of a Gripen. That's not something most of us see every day looking out the front door. More's the pity.... *sigh* Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jhe56 Posted December 14, 2007 Share Posted December 14, 2007 I seem to remember that the Swiss did and also seem to recall that at one time, the Egyptians would use roads adjacent to their airfields as back-up runways (at least for MiG-17s). Quote Link to post Share on other sites
pollie Posted December 14, 2007 Share Posted December 14, 2007 Poland did it too. I was there, at the so-called DOL (road landing strip) near Kliniska in 1998, 1999 and 2000. Very spectacular........... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Alternative 4 Posted December 14, 2007 Share Posted December 14, 2007 I wish our traffic cops had A-10's Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Trigger Posted December 14, 2007 Share Posted December 14, 2007 More's the pity.... *sigh* Well, you can probably get away with taxiing something as big as a Tomcat on some of the streets out in Arizona, but I challenge any jet fighter in the world today to use the street I live on as a taxiway. Between the hills, curves, medians and dividers, only a VTOL or an STOL aircraft like the OV-10 could use any of the local highways/interstates as a runway. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Paolo Maglio Posted December 14, 2007 Share Posted December 14, 2007 Also Repubblic of Singapore, I saw photos of F-5S and A-4S on AFM. Paolo Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Av8fan Posted December 14, 2007 Share Posted December 14, 2007 Great shots thanks for posting.. we need a picture of a car rear view mirror with an A-10 or grippen of some such I really have to learn how to use photoshop... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
siesta3 Posted December 14, 2007 Share Posted December 14, 2007 For some of you who have been to South Korea ... they use highways as runways as well. During the old Team Spirit exercises.. A-10s from Suwon/Osan practiced using the highways. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Grant in West Oz Posted December 16, 2007 Share Posted December 16, 2007 The Arnhem Land Highway, leading east of Darwin in Australia's Northern Territory has reinforced straight sections to be used as landing zones when required. G Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Skull Leader Posted December 16, 2007 Share Posted December 16, 2007 I believe Iran practices this as well. I know they've used highways for emergency landings many times during the Iran-Iraq war. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
GreyGhost Posted December 16, 2007 Share Posted December 16, 2007 Found a pic of a Gripen. That's not something most of us see every day looking out the front door. Gee ... I hope a pooch on the loose doesn't FOD the engine ... :blink: Gregg Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Trigger Posted December 16, 2007 Share Posted December 16, 2007 Gee ... I hope a pooch on the loose doesn't FOD the engine ... :D Gregg Poodle block! Poodle block! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Andy Gudbergsson Posted December 16, 2007 Share Posted December 16, 2007 I love the pics of the A-10!Here's the Norwegian F-16 in front of a stop sign Airliners.net I noticed under the photo caption, it says it'a a Fokker F-16B Fighting falcon, not General Dynamics. Are these built under license by the Fokker company? I was under the impression that all F-16's were built here in the US. But interesting pictures though. Are these highways used by the general public or just military purposes. Cheers :D Andy G Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ChernayaAkula Posted December 16, 2007 Share Posted December 16, 2007 You're right, Andy. Some of the European Vipers were license-built by Fokker and, I believe, SABCA (sp?) of Belgium. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Andy Gudbergsson Posted December 16, 2007 Share Posted December 16, 2007 You're right, Andy. Some of the European Vipers were license-built by Fokker and, I believe, SABCA (sp?) of Belgium. Thanks Moritz. Cheers Andy G Quote Link to post Share on other sites
aircommando130 Posted December 16, 2007 Share Posted December 16, 2007 When I was stationed at Kadena we would fly up to South Korea during an exercise and use the highway runways. It was neat to be parked with our MC-130 and "4 fans turning" waiting to offload ground troops and have several A-10's taxi by with normal traffic on the other side of the road. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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