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By George Kennedy 2 hours ago


One of the great urban legends is that one mile in every five of U.S. interstate highways is completely straight. The myth goes that under the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System, these straight stretches of road would be used as improvised airstrips in times of crisis or times of war. This is a definite myth, but it has certainly inspired air forces in other nations to employ the concept.

Air bases are among the most vulnerable targets in war, and depending on how close you are to international rivals, the prospect of losing an air base to a military strike is a very real possibility. As such, an airstrip baked into the design of a highway is a must.

These were first built late in WWII by Nazi Germany. Following the war, they were also built in many places in Europe during the Cold War. These were built in East Germany and West Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Poland and Czechoslovakia.

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Other nations that use highway airstrips as part of their strategy include North Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and the former USSR. Here is a clip from the Polish film Na Niebie i Na Ziemii (In the Sky & on the Ground), where Polish Mig-21s use a highway landing strip for operations:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etnLMGurZD8


The key hallmarks of many runway strips are medians that are not grass, but cement, and minimal space between the two traffic directions. The space is typically split by jersey barriers (the Russians probably do not call them that), which can be quickly removed, creating one large landing zone out of the two traffic lanes.

Despite the fact that many stretches of highway in the United States look long enough to land a plane on (and sometimes a plane will land on one in an emergency), it is not part of the U.S. highway plan, but is certainly part of the strategy in other nations.

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German Reichsautobahn strip in World War II (spring 1945), with Ju 88 heavy fighters parked on the shoulders


An A-10 Thunderbolt II aircraft lands on the autobahn A29 near city of Ahlhorn during NATO-exercise "Highway 84".


Rear view of an A-10 Thunderbolt II aircraft as it takes off from the autobahn A29 near city of Ahlhorn during NATO-exercise "Highway 84".


A C-130 Hercules lands on the A29 Autobahn near Ahlhorn during military exercise 'Highway 84'

wikipedia/

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Design

The strips are usually 2 to 3.5 kilometres (1.2 to 2.2 mi) long straight sections of the highway, where any central reservation is made of crash barriers that can be removed quickly (in order to allow airplanes to use the whole width of the road), and other features of an airbase (taxiways, airport ramps) can be built.

The road will need a thicker than normal surface and a solid concrete base. The specialized equipment of a typical airfield are stored somewhere nearby and only carried there when airfield operations start. The highway strips can be converted from motorways to airbases typically within 24 to 48 hours. The road would need to be swept to remove all debris before any aircraft movement could take place.

In the case of Finnish road airbases, the space needed for landing aircraft is reduced by means of a wire, similar to the CATOBAR system used on some aircraft carriers.

wikipedia/

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