Commuter Plane Safety Ideas, Avoiding Short Runways

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Tags: Lexington, Kentucky Blue Grass Airport, Conair, Comair, CRJ-100 jet, Flight 5191, National Transportation Safety Board, FAA, NTSB, Federal Aviation Administration

I guess this is too obvious, so nobody's done it.

Color code the runways by length.

At either end of the runways, right in front of the takeoff apron prep area, 3 foot wide painted bars, 10 of them, 50 feet apart. At least do this for the shorter runways. You could list the actual length, to be fancy, but color would be best. Apparently runways are already marked with distance warnings, big black "3" for three thousand feet left, etc, at various points down the runway.

Or:

RFID chip like device on plane, which identifies the plane by make and model.

If such a plane reaches a takeoff apron prep area of a runway too short, alarms go off in the cockpit and the tower.

Third possibility:

Radio with tight directional beam broadcasting straight down the runway, broadcasting the runway length. Receiver in plane connected to safety interlock that at least sounds an alarm, and perhaps locks up the engines, unless an override is depressed.