Proposes Orientable Roof-Top Airports For Cities (Jul, 1938)
Filed under: Aviation, Impractical — @ 8:07 am
Source: Mechanix Illustrated ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jul, 1938
| Buy on Ebay
Tags: urbanism
Source: Mechanix Illustrated ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jul, 1938
| Buy on Ebay
Tags: urbanism
It sure would screw up your property value if someone tried to build a billion ton sky-darkening airport over your house. Also I’m not quite sure why it needs to rotate…. bonus feature?
Proposes Orientable Roof-Top Airports For Cities
PROPOSED as a solution to the problem of locating an airport in the heart of any big city, a design for a long orientable runway, which would be mounted on circular tracks atop tall buildings, as sketched above, has been conceived by a French engineer.
By rotating the runway they can point the planes into the prevailing wind, which means a shorter take-off distance, which has obvious benefits when space is limited.
I’m interested in the identity of the “French engineer” – Le Corbusier (who was actually Swiss) was fascinated with planes and had conceptual plans integrating them with his skyscraper-dominated cities – aircraft literally flying off the tops of buildings and landing on others, an idea which has probably lost its appeal in recent years.
Comment by Chris Applegate — May 25, 2006 @ 1:10 am
It does have a le Corbusier look about it
Comment by Stannous — May 25, 2006 @ 11:57 am