Is an airline airstrip flat or are they elevated?

Question

are they mainly flat or do they elevate like a ramp?

Answer 1

Ideally they are perfectly level lengthwise, but few real ones are ideal.  Many are lowest in the center and slope up slightly at both ends.  Some pilots consider this the ideal arrangement.

And a few slope up in one direction only.  All runways used for airline operations are slightly crowned (high in the middle and curving down to the edges) for drainage purposes.

In all cases the slopes are very slight--only a few feet per mile.

Answer 2

Any elevation is based on the flatness of the ground on which the runway is.

.open this link. Look for details, runway 8 /26.

See where elevation is 396 ft, elevation of runway 26 is 375 ft.That means that one end of the runway if 21 ft higher ( or lower ) than the other end.

Not perfectly flat and level, but not enough to make much difference.

  For the entire website, google "airnav" and click on "airprts"

Answer 3

They are not really elevated.  They are pretty flat.  As flat as possible really. Sloping a runway upwards would actually hurt your takeoff performance as the airplane would then have to accelerate AND oppose gravity at the same time.  Airplanes fly because of speed, and achieving speed it easier to do when going across a flat surface than it is when going uphill.

Answer 4

They are not always flat or always the same.  Some of the smaller island airports have large dips that are gradual and only noticeable from a distance.  Check out some of the takeoffs and landings of airliners at different airport through out the world to see some of the differences.  See how this 727 takes off on a runway with a definite dip in the middle.

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http://www.flightlevel350.com/Aircraft_B...

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http://www.flightlevel350.com/

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Answer 5

it depends from the terrain and engineering available at the time of constructing the strip. however no runway is perfectly flat, most are variating few meters along their length. there are some bases in Alps /switzerland/ that are totally sloped because they are placed in the mountain.

besides, like aviophage wrote all properly arranged strips have a certain degree of sideways slope to let the rain water to flow away and not form the water patches.

Answer 6

Some runways are pretty flat, some are dipped and some have crowns.