All the types you mention have multiple wheels/bogies per main undercarriage leg, and this spreads the weight around. Some even have 3 or 4 main undercarriage legs. The P8 only has 2 legs and 2 tyres per leg. Runways have multiple weight classifications depending on the wheel arrangement - Also, whilst I've no doubt all the types have operated from Kinloss, how can you know what their all up weight's at the time were? It is routine for 'heavy' types to take of from smaller airstrips with either reduced fuel or payload. B737's have to do this all the time at Bristol airport which is only 6600'. B757's can take off fully loaded, even though they have a higher MTOW.Bluetail wrote: Seems a very strange response to me, considering I've seen the following operate out of Kinloss in recent years, C-17, AN-124, DC-10 B-707, E-3A, TU-154 all very much heavier than a P-8, and all after major upgrade work to the runway at Kinloss in 1996 and 2006. Now as for Lossiemouth, why do you think they backtrack when landing on 23, its because the northern taxiway is way to narrow, which leads me to think similar major upgrade work to the taxiways needs to be done, which is not the case at Kinloss.
The real answer is that they don't want to be proven wrong for the decision to shut Kinloss, so to save face they will shoehorn everything into Lossie, which actually want be a problem.
For me the main point is that Kinloss is only 7500' long. The B737-800 requires 8000' to take off under all conditions. The P-8 has a heavier MTOW than a B737-800 so that may require even longer. Basing P8 at Kinloss means they can't always take off at MTOW, and with us having no sovereign IFR capability for the P8 that is a capability limiter which we don't want or need to accept. Yes they could probably extend the runway by 500' - after all they are doing exactly that at Waddo, and nothing has gone wrong with that plan has it?