Historical use of highways as a runway for air exercise

My oldest is in the Air National Guard, and sent me this. sent me this. Can’t imagine witnessing!




And more here post-landing. Check out the embedded videos

There is a highway that runs from Batesville MS to Oxford MS that is basically a straight line-roughly about 15 miles. The highway has large airplane silhouettes painted on it that can be seen from the air. We were told the highway can be used as a landing strip if necessary.

The only issues that make you pee in your flight suit are cars, power lines, signs, and bridges. Other than that, landing on a highway is easy.
But seriously, who hasn't peed in their flight suit?

There is an urban legend that the US highway system was designed to be used as emergency runways in time of war, but those are just legends and not true.
Other countries, however, do have highways set up to be used as runways.
If you drive in Korea you will actually see runway markings on some of the highways and they have been used on a regular basis during exercises. One Team Spirit I landed on such a highway strip to pick up Marines being off loaded from a C-130.

THParent said:

The only issues that make you pee in your flight suit are cars, power lines, signs, and bridges. Other than that, landing on a highway is easy.
But seriously, who hasn't peed in their flight suit?

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Flying NACs and Pacific tracks made me realize how lucky I was to not fly single seat fighters. I couldn’t imagine doing those in a fighter. It also made me appreciate WWII fighter pilots who flew those long range missions on a daily basis.

Units used to do this in Germany. Years ago, when there were F-4's and then F-16's at Ramstein AFB, if you looked closely at the main road to the main gate...it was a large, wide, straight road. If you looked closely, you'd notice the road striping was a tad different. And hidden in the trees there were BAK-12 arresting cable stations. Fun times for all involved. Of course, if you look at the picture...that was before the traffic circle was created.




If memory serves, that area called Parkplatz...was the "hot point" turn-around, arming, etc. Of course...that's from the mid-1980's memory.

UHBlackhawk said:

There is an urban legend that the US highway system was designed to be used as emergency runways in time of war, but those are just legends and not true.

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Perhaps no need to use the Highways,,, but there are many Municipal Airports scattered throughout the country that are far larger than necessary to accomodate civil aviation aircraft. Many built in the 50's.

Old Navy BGO said:

Perhaps no need to use the Highways,,, but there are many Municipal Airports scattered throughout the country that are far larger than necessary to accomodate civil aviation aircraft. Many built in the 50's.

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We have many municipal airports that were WWII or early Cold War bases. It is quite amazing how much smaller the Air Force is today vs then.

UHBlackhawk said:

There is an urban legend that the US highway system was designed to be used as emergency runways in time of war, but those are just legends and not true.
Other countries, however, do have highways set up to be used as runways.
If you drive in Korea you will actually see runway markings on some of the highways and they have been used on a regular basis during exercises. One Team Spirit I landed on such a highway strip to pick up Marines being off loaded from a C-130.

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I was also on Team Spirit in the mid-80's. My Marine Air Squadron set up on a wide spot on the highway. We were told that the Koreans designed their highways purposely to accommodate air ops because when TSHTF they didn't expect to have air bases to return to. I always wondered how true that was. You just confirmed it for me over 3 decades later.

Used to be very common in Germany (West and East). There were numerous highways that could be turned into runways. The posts in the middle separating highway lanes could be removed. The parking areas were more spacious than usual. Look for "Ersatzpiste" on Youtube and you will find a short documentary clip produced by the German army itself about an exercise on a highway in 1988.

bootdad said:

I was also on Team Spirit in the mid-80's. My Marine Air Squadron set up on a wide spot on the highway. We were told that the Koreans designed their highways purposely to accommodate air ops because when TSHTF they didn't expect to have air bases to return to. I always wondered how true that was. You just confirmed it for me over 3 decades later.

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That was the case. The NKs had (have?) hundreds of AN-2 Colts targeting every airfield in SK. The AN-2, though slow, was not that easy to acquire and shoot down at the time. We even practiced intercepting them with the UH-60 armed with M-134 miniguns. It was assumed about 40-50% might make it through, which was still a bunch of NK special forces running around an airbase.
My then GF, now DW, was a logistics LT but had a wartime mission of “provisional infantry platoon leader”. Basically, when the siren went off she raced to the perimeter and held in place while the aircraft launched.
A related Marine story. One Team Spirit we were assigned the mission of picking up a Marine infantry unit on one of those highway airstrips. They were flying in from Okinawa.
We had the old UH-60A, designed to pick up a Jeep but had a tough time picking up a HMMWV with which the Marines were equipped. We told them that the HMMWVs would need be empty and have 1/2 tanks of gas.
Lead tried to pick one up, but couldn’t. They set down and the crew chief walked over to check it out.
The Marines did exactly what we told them. The vehicles had 1/2 a tank of gas. They put the rest of the gas in Jerry cans and put them in the back of the HMMWVs.

Grunts. Sheese. (Old Air-Winger casts eyes downward and shakes his head with embarrassment)

Fuel is lighter when it's not in the tank. Everyone knows that.