Page 360 - Planning and Design of Airports

Airport Lighting, Marking, and Signage 315

Runway and Taxiway Marking
In order to aid pilots in guiding the aircraft on runways and taxiways,
pavements are marked with lines and numbers. These markings are of
benefit primarily during the day and dusk. At night, lights are used to
guide pilots in landing and maneuvering at the airport. White is used
for all markings on runways and yellow is used on taxiways and
aprons. The FAA has developed a comprehensive plan for marking
runways and taxiways and they can be found in the FAA Advisory
Circular AC 150/5340-1J [17]. Similarly the ICAO recommendations
for marking are contained in Annex 14 [2].

Runways
The FAA has grouped runways for marking purposes into three
classes: (1) visual, or “basic” runways, (2) nonprecision instrument
runways, and (3) precision instrument runways. The visual runway
is a runway with no straight-in instrument approach procedure and
is intended solely for the operation of aircraft using visual approach
procedures. The nonprecision instrument runway is one having an
existing instrument approach procedure utilizing air navigation
facilities with only horizontal guidance (typically VOR or GPS-based
RNAV approaches without vertical guidance) for which a straight-in
nonprecision approach procedure has been approved. A precision
instrument runway is one having an existing instrument approach
procedure utilizing a precision instrument landing system or
approved GPS-based RNAV (area navigation) or RNP (required
navigation performance) precision approach. Runways that have a
published approach based solely on GPS-based technologies are
known as GPS runways.
Runway markings include runway designators, centerlines, thresh-
old markings, aiming points, touchdown zone markings, and side
stripes. Depending on the length and class of runway and the type of
aircraft operations intended for use on the runway, all or some of the
above markings are required. Table 8-2 provides the marking require-
ments for visual, nonprecision, and precision runways.
Figure 8-19 illustrates the required marking for precision run-
ways. Figure 8-20 illustrates the required markings for nonprecision
and visual runways (source: FAA AC 150/5340-1J).

Runway Designators
The end of each runway is marked with a number, known as a runway
designator, which indicates the approximate magnetic azimuth (clock-
wise from magnetic north) of the runway in the direction of operations.
The marking is given to the nearest 10° with the last digit omitted.
Thus a runway in the direction of an azimuth of 163° would be marked
as runway 16 and this runway would be in the approximate direction
of south-south-east. Therefore, the east end of an east-west runway