Runway Wheels vs All Terrain Wheels

[Red Iron Crown]

9 hours ago, tater said:

Yes, a grass RUNWAY. Would he land a 1.5 million $+ P-51 on a random patch of grass, short of an emergency?

How about a multimillion dollar C-130 on a beach? I get your point about spaceplanes likely being improved-runway-only affairs, but people operate aircraft from non-prepared surfaces all the time.

[DoctorDavinci]

4 hours ago, tater said:

Landing a plane is rather different than a launch problem.

As the saying goes ... We can always get it up, getting it back down is where you run into problems

1 hour ago, Red Iron Crown said:

How about a multimillion dollar C-130 on a beach? I get your point about spaceplanes likely being improved-runway-only affairs, but people operate aircraft from non-prepared surfaces all the time.

This^^^^

Talk to a bush pilot ... They can tell you what is what (we got lots up here in the Great White North)

Edited March 31, 2017 by DoctorDavinci

[tater]

2 hours ago, Red Iron Crown said:

How about a multimillion dollar C-130 on a beach? I get your point about spaceplanes likely being improved-runway-only affairs, but people operate aircraft from non-prepared surfaces all the time.

C-130s are designed for rough fields.

Simple thought experiment. We give any rocket what it needs to launch (pad, runway if spaceplane, whatever). Launch into space.

Now, take the designated area it requires to land (or slash down if it does that). Take that area, and lay the Shuttle runway, or water down randomly on Earth (on land), or the landing ellipse for a capsule at sea. Land the craft in that random area. Note that we are taking the size of the runway, and simply laying it randomly over the earth, with no improvements. I'll even eliminate any highly mountainous areas, we'll still to roughly flat regions on Earth. Does it survive?

If it is a capsule at sea? Yeah, it almost certainly survives unless the random area includes the beach/rocks. Land capsule like Soyuz? Yeah, it likely survives anywhere, land or sea, even the forest, though it might be damaged badly.

The spaceplane? Almost certainly destroyed by any landing that doesn't randomly happen to overlap a paved runway.