runway numbers

EGDGZTCW;59143 wrote:

St Mawgan changed it's in Aug 08 from 31/13 to 30/12, as it is today under the new ownership.

It was before that Chris, I was there (I left in Dec 06) with Miss Carbury Rogers when she made a big thing of it for West Wings and I think the Guardian.

thats because the wind in the uk is predominantly from the west/ south west. hence runway headings between 200/ 250.

There are a few airfields in the UK that have a main instrument runway that isnt south west- north east. Shawbury is one of them.

And then there's Amsterdam Airport where, apart from the number designation, each of the six runways has a name, eg Polderbaan, Zwanenburgbaan, Oostbaan. Baan means road. They are not used for pilots, the idea being to make it easier for ground vehicles requesting runway crossings etc. Another oddity is Paris CDG where left and right is not used for the two parallel runways, they have different designators, namely 09/27 and 10/28 to save possible confusion. In Northern Canada, runway designations are given in degrees true rather than magnetic because the proximity of the Pole means gross differences in magnetic variation.

is the number 10 unlucky for the raf. because the 10 runway at linton seams to be there least fav for landing and taking off. very fussy i think

Magnetic Variation in the UK is decreasing by a very small amount easterly every year.
The main runway at Glasgow Airport was 06/24 when it opened in the 1960s and is now 05/23.

Information about Magnetic Variation is printed on Ordnance Survey maps.

interesting map showing magnetic variation about the poles over the entire globe which nicely illustrates the point Dave was making about variation changing depending on location.

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Anyone heard of the famous flight19? It was a flight of Grumman Avengers that went missing off Florida in late 1945. At the time there was no magnetic variation in the area. My guess is that the crews added magnetic variation to their course and so got lost.

Yeh, you're right James it was 06, my memory is terrible these days. I should have known that

isnt that the burmuda triangle theory were planes disappear. think we have here with some airfields suddenly disappearing lol