For those who don't like landings, it's worth knowing that runways lengths are determined by take offs, not landings. This is because planes (usually) land at a lower speed than they take off, and can brake harder than they accelerate.
A fascinating topic.
Runway length is, of course, a fixed value for any particular runway.
Whether that runway length is sufficient for a given aircraft to land is determined by a calculation, starting with the aircraft's landing distance required at a given weight and applying safety factors such as runway length (e.g. must be capable of being down and stopped within 67% of runway length available on a dry runway), elevation, density altitude, runway gradient, contamination etc.
I wonder if it might be possible for certain aircraft, in certain configurations, to have a takeoff distance required that is
less than the landing distance required, when the corrections are applied. I've actually put this question to a mate who flies 75/6s for a living and having consulted his performance manual he reckons, for those types, with a lightly loaded aircraft on a wet/contaminated runway, you could approach a situation where take-off distance required is around the same as landing distance required. Does anyone on here know of any aircraft types/configurations where LDR exceeds TDR?
On a related note it is, of course, a common occurrence for aircraft to get airborne at a weight that far exceeds their max
structural landing weight, which is why they are then required to reduce weight by dumping fuel before landing back on the same runway if they need to return to their starting point for any reason.
It's generally true that the takeoff run will be longer than the landing roll for a given weight, unless there's a major balls-up by the pilot, of course!
EDIT: this is probably more of a PPRUNE question than a Railforums question but I thought I'd put it out there nonetheless!
