Comment by heyitsdaad
14 hours ago
1) Build a mobile platform with wheels that starts at the beginning of the runway
2) matches speed with the plane as it enters runway.
3) Plane will “touchdown” on the mobile base gently since speeds are matched.
4) Lock the plane to base and decelerate the base in a controlled manner.
If you can gently lock the base and plane you can even save the plane
That's an episode from "Thunderbirds".
Implementing a mobile landing platform for commercial or high-speed aircraft is a theoretically sound concept for emergency recovery or weight reduction but faces massive technical hurdles in precision, synchronization, and infrastructure.
Just make a huge baseball glove to catch the plane as it's approaching.
You’re after a fast aircraft carrier.
Ha ha, but seriously that couldn't possibly work with any significant crosswind.
it just means the mold should be tilted with respect to the travel direction: if you have the technology to match the speed, surely you have the technology to rotate the receptacle in the horizontal plane to match the horizontal plane rotation angle induced by crosswind.
The problem with such a silly, unrealistic Rube Goldberg style scheme is not only the aircraft attitude but the lateral velocity relative to the runway centerline.
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Next project: interstellar jump craft
The plane will run out of fuel during step 1 or while on the way to an airport that has already completed step 1.
That seems like incredible overkill for a 1950s era bomber jet, no?
It can be reused.