This story raises a question I have idly wondered - why do runways seem only just long enough for their intended purpose? That is, I see planes that seem to takeoff fairly close to the end of the available road.
I want to assume there is some good reason that is not, "we didn't want to pay for more runway".
One reason is that the planes are taking off with reduced thrust, which produces less noise, uses less fuel, is easier on the engines, etc. That is, they can calculate and use a thrust setting towards the minimum required given the available runway length, rather than full trust to get airborne as soon as possible.
I don't see that, airplanes lift off with plenty of room.
BTW, bombers in combat would typically be overloaded with bombs and fuel. They needed every inch. If the runway was longer, they'd just get more bombs and fuel put on. Any hiccup in the engines meant certain fiery death.
My dad (AF pilot) would always hang the tail over the back of the runway, as he wanted every inch. Old habits never died :-)
It is a factor (a normal factor of engineering), alongside “there’s no space for more runway” (because you also need blast pads, stopways, clearways, … which are not the runway itself), and also for noise and efficiency concerns a plane is not going to do a full-out takeoff if it doesn’t need to.
> I want to assume there is some good reason that is not, "we didn't want to pay for more runway"
This is how the entire world of engineering works. Overbuilding everything is much worse for society due to the massive costs.
Doubling runway lengths cumulatively would consume hundreds of thousands of acres in the US alone. Many of these airports are right in cities so you’re talking about displacing hundreds of thousands of people.
If you could stomach that, airlines with real engineers would just calculate that they can now land much larger and/or heavier loaded planes and do such.
I want to assume there is some good reason that is not, "we didn't want to pay for more runway".