Dear sir/madame,

 

For school we have to make an Airport Master Plan to develop a whole new airport somewhere in The Netherlands. I'm studying 'Aviation Studies' at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam, University of Applied Sciences. To develop a runway, we need the main components like runway length and width with 'runway shoulders' eventually. We expect the Boeing 737-800/800W/BBJ2 (CFM56-7B Series) as biggest and heaviest operating airplane and our airport will be a low-cost one.

 

But we are in trouble right now to calculate our needed runway length. We have for now a runway length of approximately 2400 meters but that is just a gues by taking a look at the other small low-cost airport runways. To calculate the right runway length, several things are needed of the local airport such as: QNH, elevation, temperature but also surrounding buildings and many more. There are several diagrams needed such as the Payload/range diagram for in this case the 737-800/800W/BBJ2 (CFM56-7B Series) with a MTOW of 174.200 lb.

 

I am having some trouble to calculate a safe runway length for the Boeing 737-800/800W/BBJ2 and I hope some of you can help me to calculate this and to help me reading and matching the diagrams.

 

Kind regards,

Steven

Boeing Aircraft for airport design: http://www.boeing.com/commercial/airports/737.htm

Download the last file http://www.boeing.com/commercial/airports/acaps/737.pdf

 

See ya!

Dont go for departure at MTOW if you are trying to save money... Asses your probable destinations regarding possible operators, and their expected load. Since you put your location as EHAM, I guess the airport is to be in the Netherlands. With such, lets take a look at where can the 737-800 take you from AMS, using the good old great circle mapper:

 

 

Click for map

 

 

The Boeing company claims 737-800 max. range at 5,750km. I have used a little more conservative 5500km value, outlined in red. Now you will agree this is way beyond where a lowcost would send its 737. Besides, a payload hit has to be taken...

 

The blue line, is 4500 kilometers, is about the max. range at MTOW for a slightly overweight charter flight. About 18 tonnes payload. Still kind of generous, right?

 

Now lets take a look at the green line. Being at 3500 kilometers, it offers a kind of a sweet spot if you were to operate holiday charters. Covers whole Europe, entire Medditerranean, and considering prevailing winds, should allow for flights to Egyptian resorts. This kind of flight would need about 2400m for up to an ISA+20 day in Netherlands. Does not get much hotter now, does it? :)

 

Anyway you did not mention the kind of traffic... this may, and may not be the kind expected. How about Ryanair then?

Say about 2200kms. Would give you the whole Europe and select Mediterranean destinations in Africa. Good enough, should it be not?

With this scenario, you can just about make it with 2000m.

 

So think about what you will need. In any case, take some precautions, in case you should eventually want to enlarge the runway, the extra plot of land could act as a clearway in the meantime.

 

 

Widthwise, make it at least 45 meters...