Translated from the original German, these images and excerpts are from what is considered the founding text of aerodrome design at a time when heavier than air flight was less than a decade old. Del Mutel’s designs were mostly visions of structures to be built in a European future where cities had expanded so vastly that large, area-swallowing tracts of land for airports would be unavailable. Therefore, he tried to answer the question as to what would be best to build in a city environment but still large enough to handle the type of air traffic he expected to see. We see his genius in his original sketches.
This cross structure could be built into the arrangement of a city’s streets. The protocol for multiple planes using more than one runway at once was a bit suspect, however.
This idea pitted the planes against a pitched surface, allowing for a space saving compact spiral. The pilots would have to land a plane at a roughly 17 degree horizontal angle, and passengers would be subjected to some 3.4 times the force of gravity due to angular acceleration.
These tarmac loops could be added to any runway to add linear deceleration distance by expanding the runway vertically.
The stack structure is considered del Mutel’s quintessential plan. A three-tiered vertical parking deck type structure consisting of runways from which various aircraft would take off and land simultaneously.
