Anybody have any suggestions on the minimum ideal paved runway width? We are in the process or getting a paved runway. It will be 400 ft long by ??? ft wide. Our current grass field is 800 ft long x 100 plus ft wide. We want to leave a good grass field as well. We are thinking around 20 to 24 ft wide. Is that enough?

Thanks,

Tres Lowry

IMO 50 feet is the "minimum ideal width" if your talking for jets. I would be more concerned about your length, 400 ft is pretty short for some jets.

For "minimum ideal length" 800 feet would work, IMO

Ours is 24 x 250. Wished it was wider and longer ;but this is all we can have from the county regs.

The next question is what are you trying to fly off of this runway? Jets or just prop planes , do you plan to hold a jet rally on it?

400 ft. long , not long enough if you want to hold a jet meet there. Jets need more length to land because of their higher landing speeds. 800 ft should be the min. if you are planning to hold a jet rally on it. I use to fly off of 400 ft run ways and did not like it for landing not enough room to land good all the time!!!!!!

35 to 50 ft. wide would be nice for the larger jets to make a landing on and to handle crosswind landings without running off the runway into the grass and tearing up expensive landing gears and gear doors off.

Also a start up area is needed if you are going to support jets at the field.

The TORKS club in Columbus Ohio has a nice field and start up area to check out , also Winamac In. has a nice one too.


William

I would consider 50' the minimum comfortable width. I have a local airport that is 35' wide that I use but there is no room for error. You must maintain centerline. Even if you touch down on centerline there is always the issues of maintaining control till the jet stops. My A-4 for example is a very squirrelly bird on the ground due to the narrow wheel base. Not all would agree, but if I were building a runway it would be a minimum of 50' X 1200'. And at 1200' long I would need a clear, flat, long open approach path that would enable me to touch down in the first 25% of the runway. I know I am spoiled by my 75' X 5000' runway at my normal flying site but hitting a 25' X 400' runway would not only be impossible for me but certainly not worth risking my expensive jets. I tend to fly heavier scale jets so that is why I have to travel 200 miles one way to fly on the weekend in order to use a suitable runway.

Depends on how good you are...

This is the kind of input I need. I have been to many jet rallies and have seen a lot of nice flying sites, it is a little challenging when you try to incorporate what you have seen into reality. I do not think that we will have any BVM F 100's or any of the larger Airworld airframes anytime soon. When we get there, and we will, our grass runway is excellent for the larger jets. We will have BVM Electras, some of the Boomerang jets, Bobcats, some ducted fan stuff, small EDF stuff, etc. I do think that when we do this runway, the interest will grow and so on... Our problem in the past has been taking off for some of the Yellow Aircraft Ducted fan jets in our club. Landing is not a problem, plenty of room for that. There will be turbines flown here soon, trying to take that into consideration now before the work starts. We do have some fly-ins, although not jets in particular. Cost is a factor, I will be footing the bill myself with some donations from other members who are interested. The landowner is a member, I asked him what he thought and he told me right away without hesitation that it was a good idea. The length is set at 400 ft, the width will be 30 ft or less. We will try to make the transition from asphalt to grass as smooth as possible for the novice . 200 ft smooth grass overuns on each end and plenty of room on the sides. Not ideal by any means, but will suit most of our models. Anybody know how to make the cost a tax benefit? Do you think AMA will help? We have an awesome site with an air conditioned club house, RC Race Track, and a lake for boats and float planes.

Thanks,

Tres Lowry

and how good your brakes are!

use this for best stoping

You will find out that size doesn't matter. If you have a runway 25x250 you will hit it, if you have a runway 200x 15,000 you will miss it. Go Figure!

If you are starting from scratch I would like 50 X 600 to be a min. We are spoiled and fly off 90 x 685 and everthing from BVM F-100, Yellow F-18 Twin, Big F-4's go just fine along with all the sport stuff. Good luck with the runway

I've flown from a couple of narrow paved strips. You make do with what you have to work with...the smooth transition onto grass will help a lot. 20' wide is certainly doable - you just get really, really good at lining up your approaches, or else.......

450 feet is short for anything.
Save your club money and buy a heavy roller for the field.

My home field is 50 x 400. Once upon a time, it was 25 x 250. 400ft is doable with nice runoffs. We have alot of different jets using the 400ft. boomers, kingcat, hotspot, mb339, and several others. Sometimes we don't runoff, sometimes we do. If we want a little more room, we go up the road to Bowling Green for 800ft. It makes for much less stress for landings. It's not a spot landing contest every flight. Alot less carnage. If you can get more length, I would.

Tres,

For you? I think at least 200 feet wide, and 600 feet long.

Your Pal, Bill

.....thats right DF.....the runway width only needs to be as wide as your landing gear!!!!

give or take an inch....

Bill,

Better make it 600ft x 600ft for me


Hope all is well!!

Tres

450 is too short IMO unless all you want to fly is boomerang type jets. 600ft is the min and that is even a task for scale type jets. Regarding the width. As wide as you can afford. No less than 40 ft if at all possible. Again - all opinions and you know everybody has one lol.

At St louis (Gateway Jet Rally) we fly darn near everything off our runway with no problems at 42' X 600'. I have at least 45 flights on my F-4E as well as my Mig 15, F-86, F-80, Bandits, BobCats, KingCat, Maverick, and the only one I had trouble with was my first flight on my TamJets F-18 as it ran a little long only because I had it too nose heavy. Paul Blanchard has even flown his CJM F-104 there with no problems as long as it isnt 100 degrees. I think we just get use to what we have.

It all depends on what you are used to. Our field is about 40x500 and the jets land consistently on about 350 to 450 ft. All types, from DF to big F-4 and F-16. We are used to touch down on the first 50 to 100 ft of the runway. When we go to longer fields we are in heaven. Obviously if the field is shorter you have to concentrate more in having a good aproach and if not abort and try again.

We have been flying Kingcats, Bandits, Boomerangs, and Tam F16s very successfuly off of our 48 x 480 foot asphalt runway. The field elevation is 3000 feet. We don't fly a lot in the summer because of the danger of wildfire. Our neighboring club has a 45 x 600 foot asphalt runway. They host the Idaho Jet Rally every spring. Rarely do I see a jet overun the runway...usually they miss to the side when landing. I have to admit when I first started flying jets that the runways looked awfully short but after you learn to fly the approach slow and dirty with the power up, 3 or 400 feet is plenty as long as the brakes work!

Whizbang

I have ony flown from a few fields with my Boomer so I have very little experience in different fields but IMO. I would like to ask how many no for a fact the length of runway they have. 600ft is 2 football fields and that seems pretty long to me. We need to add hitting a football sized field and getting your jet to stop to the waiver process. I know you have to prove a landing on center line but we should hold ourselves to a higher degree of piloting. Do not get me wrong guys, I would love to have 50 by 600. I know the Boomer is a sport jet and with no scale jets near me I can not answer on their requirements but I bet most jets can land and takeoff with 25 by 300 with no problems. Just my POSO