You happen to have a good source for that? Because I've seen the "one airstrip every X km" story being called an urban legend several times, but I've heard the same about the manholes for demolition charges on German bridges (which definitely DO exist), so I'm curious what the true story is.

It was considered, but not included in the Interstate Act.

Link

Yes, the one-in-five statement is false (and so economically unfeasible it's almost mind boggling that it would even be considered). The truth of the implementation is that if you locate one of the landing point, then draw a circle with a 300 mile radius, there will be at least four other landing points within that circle. It was implemented that way because it was believed that the range on a fighter plane would remain in the 300-500 mile range for the foreseeable future. There are many areas where you can find clusters of 5+ in 50 mile circles, and some 30+ mile stretches where the entire length is viable for a runway.

I happened to visit Michigan about 10 years ago. If you'd try to land a fight aircraft on the highway, you'd probably rip off the landing gear in some pothole.

Well, the question is do you have a good source for that?

My information is slightly anecdotal, but it came from a Navy pilot who pointed out several in the region.

It's the reason the Harrier VSTOL-concept is defined the way it is. Big strategic assets like airfields, make for major and attractive targets...

Not forgetting the short decks of British carriers.

or the US marines amphibious warfare ships.

the story behind the british carriers are funny btw, as i think the original design was called through-deck cruisers or something. this because the british government had decided that they could not afford carriers after WW2.

Hell isn't the US Marine Corps bigger than the entire UK armed forces.

The British had mostly-finished plans for two interesting Harrier related projects:

• A submarine carrier, based on a boomer sized sub with a conning tower large enough to bring aircraft up from below one at a time. Launch could be from the back of the sub or from cranes that could launch and retrieve Harrier's from the side of the deck. (Popular Mechanics article)
• A one-plane hanger made to look like a small block of standard cargo containers. Put a few of these on a cargo ship, with a launch deck disguised to look like the tops of other cargo containers, and you have a launch point that could sail into any harbor without drawing any undue attention.

Officially, neither project was built. I would be surprised if the sub project was built covertly, but not the cargo box plans.

I so need a LAV to disapaer over open ocean now. Where did it go in to a SUB! Try guessing that runners

Didn't they already used that during the Falkland war?

The big advantage of the Harrier is you can operate it from a football- or soccer field. It allows for a very flexible deployment (from a strategic POV).

Marine Corps

Sorry, just sayin'.

No problem slip of the tongue to be fair.

I believe they were using light carriers during the Falklands conflict.

I hope you're using voice recognition software then, because the typical keyboard is something I don't want to imagine anyone's tongue getting near.

hi hi

There were submarine carriers in world war 2.

hey, its thundersub

In relation to the Harriers being deployed from containerships see also this link

hi hi

We bit off more than we could chew last night and sadly our T-bird bit the dust. Note to self: Ares likes big guns, I think they might be compensating for something.

Our MIG-67 goes down hard

Ooof!

Stuck the landing, I hope.