Utter newbie question

Geat info and well explained chaps, thanks for your patience with a newbie 😉

Thanks for the info chaps. Can I add to my Newbie question by asking………….in lamens terms “headed 236 Degrees”, what is that with reference to ? I know nothing about navigation as you can guess 😮

Heading is basically the direction in which you are pointing with reference to the magnetic North pole, or true North. For runway direction, magnetic North is the reference. The difference between true North and magnetic North varies all over the Earth, and is called “magnetic variation” (because the magnetic North pole is not where the true North pole is).

Both 000 and 360 refer to North. East is 090, South is 180 and West is 270.

As for rounding of runway designators… since the magenetic poles move slowly over a period of time, they revise the runway numbers accordingly, but this may happen only once in a blue moon in our lifetimes.

Hope this helps…regards

And latitudinally. There are magnetic anomalies.

When the direction of runway is 235 degrees to magnetic north, is the runway name rounded up to 24 or down to 23? Or is this decided by exact heading in minutes and seconds, so 234 degrees 59 minutes is runway 23 and 235 degrees 1 minutes is runway 24?

It’s in reference to Magnetic North, not “True” North. The difference between the 2 vary dependant on where you are longitudinally on the planet.

Thanks for the info chaps. Can I add to my Newbie question by asking………….in lamens terms “headed 236 Degrees”, what is that with reference to ? I know nothing about navigation as you can guess 😮

Not sure what airports with more then 3 runways with the same heading do.

They change the number designator, i.e. Paris CDG has 27L/27R/26L/26R and the reciprocals.

I apologise in advance if there is an obvious answer or its a silly question, but why are the Manchesters runways given the designations they have ie 23L etc etc :o:o:o

All runways have the number as the first two digits of their heading. In the case of Manchester the runway is headed 236 degrees. The letter indicates which specific runway in case there are more runways with the same heading. L for left, R for right, C for center. Not sure what airports with more then 3 runways with the same heading do.