The US Air force and Michigan Air National Guard's 127th Wing is going utilize Michigan state route M-32 as part of a training exercise for A-10 Warthogs. I think the Air Force wants to know if it's viable to use highways as makeshift airstrips for its aircraft and they chose the A-10 since it can handle takeoffs and landings from improvised runways.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/41760/a-10-warthogs-are-about-to-operate-from-a-u-s-highway-for-the-first-time
If a roadway has a sufficient load capacity and is relatively well maintained I don't see why this wouldn't be a breeze. It isn't totally unheard of for private/commercial planes to land on an active roadway. I actually watched someone emergency land once on AZ 87 in Rye back around 2010. The road wasn't an issue, the surprised traffic was.
Well, as long as the A-10s don't belch before they try landing.
:-o
Mike
There better be video of this. (Still a day away.)
A good show of force for all those militia kooks they have up around Alpena. :-D
From MSP's Twitter feed.
"You don't see this everyday on a Michigan highway."
https://twitter.com/mspnorthernmi/status/1423272981783003137
Also, "No speeding citations were issued during the exercise."
https://twitter.com/mspnorthernmi/status/1423274076706062338
MDOT Twitter feed:
https://twitter.com/MichiganDOT/status/1423276766626525184
In other news, MSP doesn't know the difference between "every day" and "everyday".
I hope the pilot submits his travels in TravelMapping.
That's pretty cool!
Gives one a sense of scale for a plane like that. Even moreso than seeing one at an air show, since there's no context for scale.
It also reminds one of the urban legend about interstates being designed with straight stretches to serve as ad-hoc airstrips. This demonstration shows pretty well why it is just that: an urban legend. A two-lane interstate carriageway is just simply too narrow to land any military plane built in the last 50 years. That four-lane undivided cross section the A-10 is using looks a little claustrophobic. An A-10 is a relatively small plane and even that seems oversized for the road/runway.