bumpy runway
Mar 24, 2008 | 3:28 pm
#2
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Still going through ORD security when boarding has already started
Programs: AA EXP, UA Silver, HH Gold, Bonvoy Gold, IHG Plat, Hyatt Disco, Reno Air MEGA Platinum
Posts: 10,322
Well assuming you are talking about "major" airports, I'd definitely nominate MEX.
Mar 25, 2008 | 8:10 am
#6
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Central Texas
Programs: Many, slipping beneath the horizon
Posts: 9,859
"Bumpy" can be misleading. Any number of older airports have both concrete runways and taxiways built atop unstable clay soils. To minimize cracks and slippage, the runways were built with expansion joints which under some conditions, taxiing, taking off and landing, transmit palpable and audible "bumps" to pax.
I suspect the title of "bumpiest" probably falls to one of the airports in China built by US forces back during WWII. With little or no mechanical equipment, but thousands of local laborers with removing, moving and filling millions of baskets of soiul and rock, then pulling hand operating rollers to smooth the results, before laying interlocking steel mat, the runways were "hand-made" and not planned to last forever. Looking at some of the available Google photos, it appears that those old runways were simply "updated" with asphalt/aggregate overlays and remain in service.
I suspect the title of "bumpiest" probably falls to one of the airports in China built by US forces back during WWII. With little or no mechanical equipment, but thousands of local laborers with removing, moving and filling millions of baskets of soiul and rock, then pulling hand operating rollers to smooth the results, before laying interlocking steel mat, the runways were "hand-made" and not planned to last forever. Looking at some of the available Google photos, it appears that those old runways were simply "updated" with asphalt/aggregate overlays and remain in service.