What do the Numbers on Airport Runways Mean?

It is likely that you have seen them sometimes, if not in person, in photographs. Huge numbers, visible clearly from great heights placed there so that the pilots can identify the track in which they have to land without needing special devices.

Although today commercial aviation is highly automated and there are very useful tools that tell the pilot what to do, you have to keep something as simple as drawing numbers on the ground. Curious, right? Even more curious is that the numbers have a very special motive behind them.

The secret behind the numbers of the airport runways:

Have you ever noticed that these numbers do not seem to have a particular order? That is, if the airport has two tracks, it would be logical that one track should be marked "1", and another should be marked "2", right ?. However, you have probably seen very different numbers, such as "24" or "09", even though the airport has only one lane.

What is the reason for those numbers that seem random? It turns out that they are not really random, but are put there for a reason.

It turns out that these numbers represent the separation of the track from the magnetic north in degrees, rounded to the nearest decimal. That is, if the track number is "24", then that track has a spacing of about 240 degrees relative to the magnetic north pole; if it is "09", has a separation of 90 degrees approximately with respect to the magnetic north.

Why is it important to know this? Well for several reasons, but the main is not to get lost. The pilot who is about to leave the airport is interested in knowing where he will be heading once complete the takeoff, to have a reference for the trip.

And for the one who lands, it interests to know if the track is in the appropriate angle with respect to the north so as not to be confused with the track. In both cases, the pilot only needs a compass to know that it is going in the right direction, no other device.

It is a detail that seems smaller, but that is very taken care of by the airports. The magnetic north pole changes constantly, approximately one degree each year, so every now and then the staff has to repaint the numbers with the new degree of separation, to make sure they offer the correct information to the pilots.

The above content is written by Kate Silverton, a UK based professional blogger who has written several blogs and contributed on many blogging sites. He is a content strategist who is currently working at Dream World Travel which provides the cheapest flight tickets to its customers.