North Korea’s Thunderbird Runways
As any bond villain will attest, a true megalomaniacal dictator should have a number of underground lairs from which to hatch evil plots.
As we can see, North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il and his associates have plans to go one better than the average Bond villain, and are imitating the Thunderbirds with this runway being constructed underneath a mountain.
The runway, in the region of Wonsan, sticks out a bit at either end so we can measure it at 1800m long and 30m wide. A close up of the entrance shows it’s still being constructed.
The idea here seems to be that foreign military satellites (and Google Earth enthusiasts) would be unable to see what aircraft North Korea have under the mountain, so if a war broke out Thunderbird 2 could use the runway for launch.
The North Korean military are apparently so convinced that the “runway mountain” is the future of modern warfare that they’ve actually built three separate runways across the country. This second example is in the area of Onchon.
I’ve never claimed to be a military expert, but this all seems a bit mad to me – surely the benefits of hidden aircraft are outweighed by the fact that it would be very easy for an attacker to completely ruin the airbase with one strategically placed bomb at the entrance?
Thanks to danescombe.
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My guess is that this may be a test facility for experimental aircraft. I would not think that this would be used during a conflict.
Two cruise missiles. = Death trap for hundreds of scientists and dozens of top secret billion dollar aircraft.
You can’t hide such stuff… you can either test xor hide it.
If you just want to hide something from view (like experimental aircraft), it would be MUCH easier and cheaper to just build a hangar.
As for the protection value: Any runway is fairly easily damaged by a few well placed bombs … but also repaired fairly easily. Destroying something INSIDE a mountain (like military assets) with bombs is a whole different proposition … as the fairly fruitless campaign against http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tora_Bora showed. As long as there is some blast protection at the entrances any non-nuclear bombing will likely not damage anything inside …
Check out Switzerland underground air bases: they literally are like buried aircraft carriers with aircraft exits on higways.
http://good-times.webshots.com/album/562341466EYsUtC
How loud will it be in these tunnels when an aircraft is accelerating to takeoff? Yikes!
Reminds me of the Navy yard that China has…
a link to what I was talking about
china base
@Jack, it seems you forgot to include the link?
Chinese Secret Base
… try, try again…
You wouldn’t want to need to do a “go around” on this runway. If you needed to pull out of the landing you’d risk slamming into the side of the mountain.
This reminds me. Has Tracy Island been found on Google Earth yet?
The Swiss situation’s a bit different: they’ve got room for some runways on valley floors, but rarely for all the support services to go with them, so they used their tunnelling experience to make more space.
And there I was thinking the Beloved Leader rather more resembles the Hood…
The two straight areas on either side of the hill/mountain are not exactly aligned. It looks much more like a mining operation. The longer straight area extend out into what looks like wetland/paddy fields.
@Eric, the lower part is in a different image, so maybe that’s why the two parts are not exactly aligned. But you are right, how sure can we be that this is a runway indeed? It all doesn’t make sense – you can hide your fighters in the mountain, sure enough, but why let them *take off* in the mountain? It’s not that taking off takes such a long time. And the runway is still vulnerable to bombings, as you still need part of it to be outside – it’s not that you can get airborne while being in the tunnel. Why would the mountain be in the middle part of the runway? And then there are too many obstacles around it…
But then, North Korean leadership is completely mad anyway…
Point is this is not usual underground hangar with outside runways. This is burried runway which in case of emergency protects aircrafts during take off and after they complete mission they return to some other base because this base is no longer useful for protection in enemy environment. If it is not destroyed it can be used again to protect aircrafts when enemy raid or threat is gone.
I’m north korea people ㅎㅎ
May 27, 1963; Embassy of Hungary In North Korea to the Hungarian Foreign Ministry told of extensive cavern systems there. The “Dragon gate” (Ryongmun cavern) sounds a sight to behold. someday I would like to see for myself!