When landing on holiday the pilot often referred to a runway number. What does it mean?

Question

They say they are landing on runway number say 27 I can only see the main runway and a smaller one running across the airfield and the concret around the whole airfield

Answer 1

Each concrete strip you land on is 2 runways. One in each direction, and the direction you land in is always dependant on wind direction, its always better to land facing the wind as much as possible because you can approach at slower speeds with the same control and its also very difficult to land with a tailwind, especially when you are trying to put 200tons of metal and 400 passengers on a lump of concrete at 150mph. One cockup or instability, especialy at low speeds and low altitude is near impossible to correct.

The numbers are completely dependant on which direction they are in.
Lets take Heathrow.
It has 2 parallel main runways 27L/09R (the L and R mean left and right and is simply lets the pilot know to land on either the left or right runway as he is looking at it) and 27L/09R.
If you were to land on 27L the direction you would be facing on touchdown is 270 degrees (or due west) and you would land on the left hand runway as the pilot is looking at it (so in the case of Heathrow, the southernmost runway).
If you were to land on 09L then you be on the northernmost runway landing due east.
The number of the runway is always the first 2 digits of the direction of the runway you are landing on.
So runway 35 is 350degrees, runway 02 is 20degrees.
Just take the last digit off the heading and thats the runway.
If the direction is less then 100 degrees then its always 0* to make the heading 3 digits.

Hope it makes sense, not good at explaining.

Answer 2

It is an international standard that Runways are designated by the compass bearing that you have to fly in order to land on it. These bearings are normally rounded to the nearest whole two digit number.

For example: at Heathrow there are two long parallel runways going east-west and a shorter runway going (approximately) south west- north east. Their number indicates the approximate compass bearing and they also carry the suffix Left or Right because they are parallel.

The east-west runways are desigated "27 Left" and "27 Right" when you approach from the east (over London) because their compass bearings are about 275 degrees.

If you approach from the west the northern runway will be known as "09 Left" and the southern one as "09 Right" because their bearing is nearing 90 degrees.

The cross-runway is known as 07 and 23 depending on which direction you approch it from.

If you look at the touchdown zone (near the runway threashold) you will see the runway designator painted on the concrete. It's also painted on the taxiway signs warning that you are about to enter a runway.

The landing aids and aerodrome navigation equipment transmit the runway identification as a morse code signal to aeroplane auto pilots when they're doing automatic landings.

Some private flying clubs just use a field and a wind sock so they don't have runways. Also, some sad gits believe Hollywood and "invent" runway designators.

Answer 3

The answer about compass heading is correct. Runways are designated by the closest 10 degrees.

EXAMPLE
LAX has 4 runways 2 sets of parallel runways. Each set is designated to the closest compass heading. Coming from the East the runways are 24L(left) 24R(right) and 25L and 25R. This designates at a westbound heading your compass will read 240 degrees or 250 degrees depending on which runway you are approaching. If you are approaching from the West, the same runways are designated 6L, 6R, 7L and 7R because your compass now reads 60 or 70 degrees.

Answer 4

It's the direction on a compass with out the third digit that the airplane is facing when it takes off and lands. If you look at a compass the directions are measured in degrees of a circle. So there are 360 degrees in a circle with 0degrees/360degrees as North 90degrees as East 180 degrees as South and 270degrees as West and the runway was facing west and they just remove the third digit so instead of it being 270 it's 27. Get it?

Answer 5

Snook is completely right, the numbers of runways depend on their compass orientation. One physical runway strip has two numbers, depending on which direction it runs.
Thus, a runway that runs due North to South (or vice versa) will have the numbers 0 (taking off or landing facing due north) and 18 (from 180º - minus the zero, facing due south).
So, an east-west runway would have numbers 9 and 27.
Get it? Feel free to contact me if you need further explanation, sometimes I assume that I've said something quite clearly, and in fact I've only put another dark cloud in the sky (scuse the naff metaphor, it's all this talk of flying...).

Answer 6

the numbers on the runway refer to the magnetic heading of the runway minus the last number.. so when you take off on runway 27.. you will be pointed west (270).. runway 36 is north (360) runway 9 is east (090) and runway 18 is south (180).. runways can be in any direction, not just the 4 that i mentioned above..

Answer 7

The compass heading/ runway number is how they are named...

The only other thing that I will mention is in a circumstance such as LAX where they have 4 runways, all pointed in the same direction, which is 69 degrees... In this situation, the two leftmost runways are given the lower number (6) as in 6L and 6R... and the two rightmost runways are given the higher number (7) as in 7L, and 7R...

Therefore, from right to left, you would see runway 6L, 6R, 7L, 7R...

Answer 8

I think the numbers refer to the compass direction. IE 26= 260 degrees and 6=60 degrees. Due to magnetic north shifting Manchester have changed theirs to 27 and 5 respectively

Answer 9

it means the runway faces heading 270, or due west.

Answer 10

The smaller runway is number 26. They have to give 'em numbers.