Originally Posted by
POPA
At the smaller airports, it's not generally the length of the runway that limits the utilization by larger aircraft. The limiting factor tends to be the load-bearing capacity. Regardless of how much power a 757 has, it will sink in a runway not built to handle its bulk.
Very true - forgot to mention that! Typically, however, I don't see the runway/taxiway load-bearing ability to be too much of a factor...And looking at some 10-9's, it looks like the typical gear-truck configuration of a mainline aircraft allows for sufficient load-spread...