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Comment by kevin_thibedeau | Hacker News Reader

There's a reason why the Eisenhower Interstate System signs have the 5 stars of a general.

If I'm not mistaken, the 5-star logo only applies to sections of interstate highway that have at least one mile of level and straight road in any given 5-mile stretch. The idea was that an "Eisenhower Freeway" could be used as an impromptu landing spot for Air Force planes. While I'm sure this ability was tested at the beginning I don't know if there are regular drills and exercises making use of this feature.

I would love to see a plane try to decelerate from 200+ mph with the surface quality changing every 200 yards and with 18-inch-deep potholes every so often. I wonder what sort of maintenance budget the original interstate plan envisioned

Several planes land on highways per year, I don’t find the source but it was from AVWeb and the order of magnitude is ~10 per year. It’s actually much safer han fields. But those are Cessnas at 80mph, not Boeings.

This is an urban legend debunked in the linked Wikipedia article: "According to urban legend, early regulations required that one out of every five miles of the Interstate Highway System must be built straight and flat, so as to be usable by aircraft during times of war. There is no evidence of this rule being included in any Interstate legislation."

The Eisenhower Interstate Highway System is designed for military purposes only in the sense that it's very important to be able to quickly move your troops and materiel around to where they're needed (i.e. logistical reasons). In other words, it's important to the military for the exact same reasons that it's important to anyone else.

It has some merit. Sweden built an entire system based on road bases to deter any invasion attempts from the Soviets, including aircraft able to operate out of them. Still happen upon them to this day, just notice the road get straighter and a tiny bit wider.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bas_90

I'm not saying it doesn't have merit or isn't true of other countries, just pointing out that it's not true of the United States. The US is a lot different from Sweden in two salient points here -- we're much bigger, and we're protected by entire oceans from potential enemies on all sides.

Completely agree with you. Just pointing out that the idea that I guess many technically minded people come across actually exists, although in a completely different environment.

In contrast to oceans there's 600 km by air from St. Petersburg to Stockholm which leaves minutes to respond.

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