Highway Airbases?

[prime_642]

I was wondering if you could simulate the C-5's rough landing ability and the ability of some planes to land on highways. As i recall, Eisenhower built the highway system so that in the event of a ground war in America, planes whose bases just got overrun can land on a highway.

[George Geczy]

I think the military purpose of highways was moving tanks and infantry around quickly as the first priority...

Though if you go up to Alaska and the Yukon you'll run into the occasional 'airstrip-on-road' - the road widens and becomes an emergency air strip, then returns to normal.

Regardless of that, I think this has actually been suggested before on the forums a long time ago, and basically the issue is that a 'landing spot' of a highway really doesn't offer the basics that you would need to effectively continue to use a plane squadron - no fuel, no maintenance, no place to store anything, etc.

The basic point of allowing this would be to allow 'emergency landings' (ie my airbase got destroyed, my plane is short of fuel and can't make it to another base, etc...) This was considered, but it really is not very realistic on a large scale to have military squadrons landing on roads and dirt fields all over the place.

Air strip facilities are pretty quick to build in the game (just 20 days, I think) and so wise placement of emergency air strips might be the best approach.

For our purposes, if you run out of fuel, the squadron is destroyed.

-- George.

[chandrill]

I have a pilot friend, with his own cessna, who flew through Alaska on vacation at one point. According to him there were a couple of places they stopped for fuel where they radioed in, and the attendant went out on the highway, and put up roadblocks so the plane could land and refuel. According to him it was a regular thing, not just emergency. However , as you said, on the strategic scale this probably doesn't fit in, and there was only room for a few small planes at a time, so i don't think its really need.