Why can’t Airport Runways have a Ramp?
Airports go to such lengths to ensure that they deliver the best of quality. Think of their highly paid staff, the huge chunks of land that ports are constructed on, the exemplary safety precautions taken etc.
The other part to this equation is the technology adopted i.e. means that are targeted at expediency without compromising the quality of services and it is here that ramps would have come in.
Rather than put up with miles or tarmac, one would have thought that airport runners would have figured by now that building ramps is an easier option to implement. And they have, it is just that it has its own downsides such that it is not feasible to raise.
In this article, we will explore the different reasons that make it a pain to elect ramps and why ports have ultimately decided that it is not something they would do. To be sure, there are airports out there that have ramps but they occupy a very tiny minority. In most cases, they are located in places where it was impossible to put a big airport structure hence the willingness to look the other way given the circumstances.
What is a ramp?
It is important that we define what a ramp is here first since the most popular term carrying this name in the flying industry is not what we are talking about today. A ramp at an airport is often used to refer to the area where planes park.
There activities including offloading cargo, maintenance, and refueling take place. We can talk about this ramp for several reasons not least the safety of the folks that work there but we will leave that for another time.
Instead, the ramp that this article’s scope extends to refers to a raised surface that starts at some distance into the runway and peaks at its end. It is more or less the same as the structure/object that comes to one’s mind if the word ramp is used in civil engineering.
The only difference would be that ramps in this case will look larger in size. If it were to be used at a port, a ramp would help extend an aero plane’s momentum to the highest possible number so as to smoothen taking off as much as possible.
Reasons why airports do not have ramps
1. Directions
This is probably the single most influencing factor for why ramps are not exactly popular at airports. The reasoning behind goes back to the fact that the take-off and landing of a plane always has to be done against the direction that the wind is blowing towards.
It fires up the engines when lifting off and slows the jet when returning from the sky.
This state of events means that there is no one point for landing and taking-off at airports yet placing ramps on the runway risks to bring about this fixation since they are not built in a makeshift way.
2. Reduced landing options for pilots
If you are going to make contact with a ramp first upon coming down, then you are required to be more careful which fact increases the chances of things going wrong. This owes to the impact of a slanting slope i.e. it is greater than that of a flat one.
As for the ramps at the end of runways, there is no shortage of the so-called overruns i.e. incidents in which a flight has not stopped by the time it gets to the end of the runway– it is estimated that the kind averages at 32 incidents annually.
Now, coming across a ramp and a flat surface in scenarios like these can mean the difference between life and death because rather than get stuck in grass in the latter situation, the plane may very well fall over if it is a ramp case.
3. Reduced pilot options when taking-off
Placing a ramp at a certain point assumes that by the time a plane comes by it, it should have gained some specified momentum but that is not how things work in flying.
On hot days for instance, pilots take a while before gathering all the strength that they need because it is denser out there.
Moreover, if the worst comes to the worst and it is decided that the flight is aborted, it is much more easier to do this at any point if the entire runway is flat. If there is a ramp somewhere though, it can be pretty difficult to stop the plane if it has reached there already.
4. Cost implications
Building a runway is disruptive since a lot of modifying has to be done to realize the requisite measures. This translates into the need to commit considerable resources to thinking through the engineering and purchasing the necessary materials.
This is not merely a hypothetical scenario by the way as Hartsfield-Jackson tried it out and by the end of it all, the airport management had spent chunks of dollars.
These hurdles would have been endurable though had it not been for the fact that as pointed out, one does not need these facilities at best, and at worst, they can be disruptive.
5. Abruptness is not good for anyone
Taking-off as well as landing in a ramps system involves sudden stress. For taking-off, the force occasions from the fact that as the plane leaves the cliff, it is expected to familiarize itself with the atmosphere swiftly and the reverse is true for landing.
With flat grounds however, environment acclimatization happens gradually.
Any little miscalculation is therefore likely to result into disproportionate ramifications with ramps. To put it another way, only fighter jets are built for this sort of thing. The dynamics in passenger carriers are rather different.
6. Standard
Over the years, it has been agreed across the world that the standard of building airports follows a flat runways model– something that I am sure you will find plausible given what has been discussed above. This has allowed an ecosystem that makes things easy for pilots to fly in and out of airports regardless of their primary areas of stay or the places that where they went to school.
This could not be stressed more considering that the hallmark of air travel is its international nature.
If for some reason the minds behind some airport insist on erecting ramps therefore, they will equally have to be prepared to go through considerable pain to have their plan approved.
7. Plane structures
There are very few projects that have to be perfectly attuned to the requirements of their job descriptions than planes. This because they operate off the ground hence there are more intervening factors in their operations than with other things.
For ramps to be introduced thus, it would be necessary that the architecture of regular planes is reimagined so to better support the new realities that would emerge like balancing weight. And again, because the industry has by far moved away from using ramps, the inconveniences met even in a scenario where the said objective is attained are simply not worth it.
8. General control problems
We have talked about the hardships brought by ramps at landing and take-off stages. This extends to the general experience of planes at an airport built in this way though.
It is the case for instance, that when in motion, it is important that the thrust generated by the different engines of the plane remains uniform and yet, moving across a slope makes it more likely for this effort to fail. The same applies to cases involving brake defects.
It is harder to stop the plane if one of those arises when it is coming towards a ramp because obviously, a slanting area increases the speed at which the vehicle involved runs.
Mark you, these issues are exacerbated in bigger planes which is a category that any serious developer will be targeting.
