Bumpiest runways in the world...?

[Aviador]

Bumpiest runways in the world...?

Runway 14 at Leeds Bradford Airport, by Aviador, hosted on Forums4airports.com

This is a picture of runway 14 at Leeds Bradford Airport (LBA/EGNM United Kingdom)
The picture was taken from the highest point of a hill called the Chevin situated to the North West of the airport at 925ft.

2250m of undulating concrete slabs. In the distance is Leeds City Centre. Just off the picture on the centreline to runway 32 is a tower called Bridgewater Place, a 32 storey skyscraper which is currently the tallest building in Leeds. The top of the tower is around the same height as the airfield elevation at 682ft AMSL. Runway 32 threshold is 662ft AMSL, runway 14 is 674ft AMSL.



A US TV channel once reported on an aircraft carrying out a crosswind approach into the airport and they said they thought it was an "optical illusion" as the aircraft looking like it was landing on a hilltop.

 

[Ray Finkle]

Birmingham's runway also undulates, even after some profiling whilst the extension was built. When seen on some photo's and video's it looks like a roller coaster but as it's spread over 3000m it's actually not too bad.

Photo from the BHX Blog, credit to the taker.

 

[Ray Finkle]

Zakynthos has a terribly bumpy runway but is more to do with the surface rather than undulations.

The clip below is a Thomas Cook A321 about to depart back to Bristol, you can hear the captain tell people that it may be bumpy until they get airborne 🙂

Media broken

 

[TheLocalYokel]

And when the TCX A 321 arrived back at Bristol it would have to contend with a short, undulating runway over 600 feet above sea level, although the surface is certainly not bumpy in my experience as a passenger.

In the mid 1980s when these things were still allowed, I managed to get onto the flight deck of an Orion Airways Boeing 737-300 flying from Bristol to Faro.

The captain was sitting back contentedly smoking his pipe but the younger first officer was very chatty and helpful. I asked about the undulating runway and the crew joked (at least I hope they were joking) that when taking off on the westerly runway (27) at Bristol it was impossible to see over the hill part way down the runway, so they always kept fingers tightly crossed that an obstruction did not come into view as they mounted the crest of the runway hill.