Search the Community

There doesn't seem to be a forum on here to cover this invention, but still here goes. During all these boisterous gale force winds and all I've been noticing all the trouble that airlines have been having trying to land there planes safely, aborted landings, doodling about hoping for a lull in the gusts, having to be diverted to an airport with a runway that faces the wind better and all the rest of it. Aircraft carriers of course don't have this problem as the just turn the ship into the wind to despatch and land their aeroplanes, but static airports on land are stuck with whatever runway direction they have which are often far from ideal in strong blustery gale force cross winds which can cause huge delays, diversions, angsiety to the pilot, crew and passengers alike putting lives at risk and aircraft all out of position, wasting fuel and goodness knows what else. So my invention which would eliminate a lot of this into the wind for takeoff and landing problems in powerful cross winds is this. Dig out a large perfectly circular lagoon, say about 2 miles in diameter and fill it with water. Next build an airport on an enormous great perfectly circular board that fits absolutely perfectly in the circular lagoon. This floating circular platform that the entire airport is built upon can have say thousands of 40 gallon old oil drums lashed beneath it. Now this is big, 2 miles or so in diameter so everything on it would need to be as light as possible. Ok the aircraft runways, taxiways and all that will need to be really tough and strongly made but structures like the control tower, terminal buildings, cargo sheds ect ect could easily be knocked up out of say balsa wood, cardboard and glue ect or even tents. Now to control and adjust this massive rotatable floating airport in times of strong, gusty and contrary winds can be quite simple. A massive floating airport island like this wouldn't need much power to turn it it being all afloat like, so I suggest a great cog of teeth all around the circumference of the circular floating airport just like the starter ring gear on an engines flywheel. Don't forget that despite its huge size this circular airport is an exact and perfect fit in the circular lagoon with only perhaps a half inch free clearance all around so that it can rotate freely with no snags. The driving power to gently turn the airport into favourable positions for planes to always take oft and land into the wind could be achieved by probably not too big a vehicle type starter motor, a big lorry one might do the trick which at the touch of a pair of jumper leads would actuate the starter motor and engage it with the ring gear all around the airport and so set it in motion. At the position of this rotating floating airport control electric motor can be stationed a little bloke in a little sentry box ''to protect him from bad weather'' complete with a stove, kettle and teapot for tea making, a big windsock on a stick to indicate to him the wind direction, a battery and a pair of jumper leads to work the starter motor and either a torch at night or a semaphore signal device to signal to and warn the controllers in the tower that the wind has changed and that an airport adjustment is imminent and about to take place. There might of course be some little incidental problems with this idea but nothing that cannot easily be solved.