Runway length

I just flew to MYGF and it has a runway of around 11,000 feet. The elevation of this airport is near sea level. I'm wondering why they made the runway so long? It's not like they would suffer from density altitude, right? I know here in Colorado at KDEN the runways are about 15,000 feet long, as long as the Rookies are as high because of density altitude. It just puzzles me why an airport at near sea level has such a long runway.

Denver's runways are all 12,000 feet x 150W, except 16R/34L which is 16,000 x 200. As to why Grand Bahama is so long, you'd have to ask those who made the decision. But that's not unique -- many airports have runways approaching 10K+ -- and longer runways do give aircraft more leeway on loading, temperatures, wind conditions, etc.

11000ft isn't exceptionally long.

 

 

I beg to differ! LOL

 

 

It's just I've been flying to many, many locations and the average length of runway I fly onto is around 7,000.

Standard military runway for jet operations is considered to be 8000 ft x 200 ft for tactical jets. MAC, SAC have other standards.

 

Some civil airports are equipped to handle large planes with large passenger or freight loads, carried in wide body airliners. High temps at high weights, landing or taking off, require longer strips. You can't make a general rule. The type of plane and what operating weights is limited by facility design, and vice versa. You are not going to take a fully loaded DC8-73F out of a 7000 ft runway on even a warm day.

Some are former military airfields and those needed to be long in the day.

Well, the only ones I am really familiar with are Kingsly Field, here in Klamath Falls at 10,301', MCAS Yuma at 13,300' and a short one at 9,241', MCAS Iwakuni at a mere 8,005', and finally, Beautiful Beaufort by the Sea (sarcasm at it's best) at 12,202'.

Kingsly is the home of the only F-15 training base in CONUS, and even on hot days they don't even use 1/2 the runway, without using AB's. But then, they're not really loaded very heavy, being just training flights. I imagine that if you loaded one up with lots of ordnance and fuel tanks they might take a bit more, although they have very powerful engines.

When I was stationed at Yuma, the F-4's didn't have any trouble getting off the ground, although they used alot of the runway, but the real space users were the F-21 KFir's, that used most of the long runway to be able to land. They land at something over 200 knots, and even with a drag chute, they take a long time to slow down. But then, Yuma was really designed as a F-4 base. I'm not going to say anything about hot days, since that's all Yuma has. Miserable bloody place.

 

By the same token, many Naval runways are 100' for take-off and about 350' for landing. But that's a carrier setup :D

 

Whole point to my rambling is that it seems that military bases just have long runways. By the same token, KSFO has runways over 11,000', so even modern civil airports can have some big ones, too. It all depends on their intended traffic. The bigger, and heavier, traffic they bear, the longer their runways get.

Makes sense to me, anyway.

 

Have fun!

Pat☺

My home airport, KFNL has a 8,000' runway and 737's can land on it.

 

I mainly fly the Lear 45 in the Sim so I can get in and out of a lot of places.

Sure you can get a 737 in and out of Ft. Love, provided it's not loaded too heavily and it's not a hot day, but many airliners can't touch that at these altitudes, and as was mentioned above, heavier loads and hotter days add more and more to the required length. And that's just as true at sea level as at 5,000 feet. And FNL isn't basically an airline airport -- it's general aviation, though it handles many bizjets. That's not the same as a primarily airline field such as DIA, O'hare, etc.

 

In any case, longer runways are for improved safety, as much as for anything.

I just flew to MYGF and it has a runway of around 11,000 feet. The elevation of this airport is near sea level. I'm wondering why they made the runway so long? It's not like they would suffer from density altitude, right? I know here in Colorado at KDEN the runways are about 15,000 feet long, as long as the Rookies are as high because of density altitude. It just puzzles me why an airport at near sea level has such a long runway.

 

Density altitude is calculated as a function of temperature, pressure and humidity. I don't know why you bring altitude into the equation unless you are confusing Pressure Altitude which is a function of Field Elevation and Pressure? Both affect the performance of aircraft.

 

The Bahamas can be exceedingly hot, wet and with extremes of pressure. For safety and access by larger passenger aircraft (more passengers = more money spent in the local economy) they need a longer runway. For practical operations with commercially-viable loads or for lower power settings for improved economy and environmental considerations a longer runway is desired.

 

Simple, really.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_and_high