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Thread: For the RAAF, not a lot of concrete in the Pacific.

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    For the RAAF, not a lot of concrete in the Pacific.

    Runway length matters. Most modern jets require at least 2 kilometres of reinforced concrete from which to operate. But they also place demands on runway strength (reinforcement and thickness), and need suitable parking areas for refuelling and loading and unloading stores and ordnance. Modern operations also demand communications access for flight planning and monitoring. The Middle East has complete radar coverage, and ubiquitous high-capacity networks. The Indo-Pacific does not
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    For the RAAF, there’s not a lot of concrete in the Pacific | The Strategist
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    If we go back in history, there is a related situation. In 1939, long distance flight was pretty much the domain of large flying boats. The reason for this was that to get a large aircraft into the air with a large fuel load took a long takeoff run, and long runways simply did not exist except in a very few places. And with the amount of air travel, there was little interest in building these. But on the other hand, there were lots of places where there were long stretches of calm water that could be used by flying boats.

    But quite early in WW2, as strategic bombing became a major activity, it was soon realised that the easiest way of increasing bomb load or range was to build longer runways. Since there was a war going on, this happened. As the fighting, and movement of aircraft expanded worldwide, by the end of the war, there were long runways in most places round the world. And as the fighting ended, civilian airliners started to appear that took advantage of this. Airlines, resuming operations after the war sometimes seemed to not realise that things had changed, and for example, many Sunderlands were converted to Sandringhams, and manufacturers drew up plans for the next generation of flying boats, some very ambitious.

    But by the early 1950s, nobody was buying large flying boats, but were buying mostly American land airliners such as the DC-6 and Constellation, and saw their future with turboprops or even the coming turbojets. None of the large post-war flying boats, as far as I am aware, ever actually made a sale to an airling. All because of the military airfields with long runways all over the world.
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    Marston matting. Used all over the world to make long runways. So much of it about that Tutt Bryant Industries who won the tender for the rights to all Commonwealth owned scrap in PNG would only sell it in 8 ton slings. The cockie who wanted a dozen or so pieces to make a pig pen or bails was out of luck. It was 8 tons or nothing.
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    Yes. I remember when I was in Port Moresby, landing on the second runway - it rattled!

    But the best story I know about that comes from the Berlin airlift. It seems a DC-3 (probably actually a C-47) was flying loads of Marston matting to Berlin for more runways. After the first couple of loads of aluminium matting, a mixup in the loading resulted in the next load of steel matting being loaded with the same count of sheets. It must have been windy, or the pilots not too attentive to performance, but it actually got into the air OK, but as soon as power was reduced from Maximum Takeoff setting, it threatened to stall. So they flew the fairly short flight to Berlin at Takeoff power - placarded for a maximum of five minutes. And the landing was very heavy.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bigbjorn View Post
    Marston matting. Used all over the world to make long runways. So much of it about that Tutt Bryant Industries who won the tender for the rights to all Commonwealth owned scrap in PNG would only sell it in 8 ton slings. The cockie who wanted a dozen or so pieces to make a pig pen or bails was out of luck. It was 8 tons or nothing.
    Great for the bloke who wanted to build an 8 Ton Pig Pen though.

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    Hmmm, not sure what I think of that article,....never let the truth get in the way of a good argument! I flew into quite a few airstrips on the islands north of P.N.G which MacArthur had established as his forward bases and they were very Impressive. Very little Marsden matting and mostly coronis(crushed coral)this was in the late 90's , so even 50 years after the war their still in good nick!. Goodenough Isl airstrip was the closest and from memory about 3k long. This article mentions none of these. There are also numerous U.S strips north of the equator which whilst no longer commissioned were still very much in the back of my mind as I plodded my way across the pacific from AU towards LAX. They could be set back up fairly quickly.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rolly View Post
    Hmmm, not sure what I think of that article,....never let the truth get in the way of a good argument! I flew into quite a few airstrips on the islands north of P.N.G which MacArthur had established as his forward bases and they were very Impressive. Very little Marsden matting and mostly coronis(crushed coral)this was in the late 90's , so even 50 years after the war their still in good nick!. Goodenough Isl airstrip was the closest and from memory about 3k long. This article mentions none of these. There are also numerous U.S strips north of the equator which whilst no longer commissioned were still very much in the back of my mind as I plodded my way across the pacific from AU towards LAX. They could be set back up fairly quickly.

    Imagine trying to build Coronis Strips today. Such a Hue & Cry, OMG, it would be heard from Mars. Not to mention Millions of Kina Compensation for somebody's pocket.

    Some interesting stuff on Coral surfaces.


    https://www.icevirtuallibrary.com/doi/pdf/10.1680/iicep.1989.36




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    Agreed on the hue and cry however I wouldn't be at all surprised that the Chinese in their Pacific expansion have blasted and used reefs to build their new runways.
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    Hhhmmmmm, enough said on that score, Rolly.

    Yes, I couldn't see them shipping huge quantities of old Demolition material to the SCS to create Breakwaters & Air Strips, come to think about it.

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    Many of Russia's combat aircraft were designed and built to use rough airstrips not concrete.
    URSUSMAJOR

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