We know, we know, this has been done a lot over the course of time in different places and countries but the video is still cool! Back in 1984 the US Air Force performed some pretty big exercises on a freshly built hunk of the German Autobahn highway that was designed for use as a runway if the dookie hit the fan and traditional air bases were disabled or unsafe for use. According to the video, these guys landed something like 350 planes that ranged from big transports to fighter jets and turned them all around and blasted them out lickety-split. Weirdly, the places were the only real “permanent” things in the operation as all the rest of the control and operations stuff was temporary and stayed only as long as they needed it.
Countries like Norway and Sweden have airplane storage facilities built into mountains adjacent to highways as the highways serving as their runways. Pretty much every highway system in the world has this capability and outside of the benefits of freedom of movement, military strategic planning is the main reason to have a well designed and executed highway system in any country.
It does seem kind of fanciful though that this would have been some sort of effective strategy if a legit, all-out war was taking place with what we can only assume would have been the Russians and communist East Germans. That being said, we guess you have to explore all of the options and do the best you can to keep the bad guys on their toes.
If you dig planes landing on highways, you’ll enjoy his video.
