Runway and Taxi Lights (Low Visibility)

[GAMEOVER]

Well, hi mates¡¡

I know that the Runway Lighting changes the last 3000 ft of the runway:

- At 3000 ft remaining, the white R.C.L begin to alternate with the red for the next 2000 ft
- At 2000 ft remaining, the white R.E.L begin to change from white to yellow for the rest of the runway.
- At 1000 ft remaining, the R.C.L changes to all red.Also, Taxi Lights consist of:

One line of green taxiway centerline lights and two lines of blue taxiway edge lights.
And, at certain points on the taxiway there might be red stop bars.Is there anyone that can explain the difference between Runway and Taxi Lights in Low Visibility?

I know that the separation of Center Lights must be 15m for ILS CAT III and 30m for ILS CAT II. Is it correct?

Anything else please? :O

[zonnair]

Taxi lights are green. Green/Yellow in the ILS sensitive area (needed for LVP only).

Runways lights can be 30 meters for CAT III also. Up to CAT IIIA it will have no effect. For CAT IIIB RVR will be increased to 150m i.s.o 75m.

For take off however, some authorized air carriers, can reduce the RVR down to e.g. 125m (CATC), or even down to 75m, as a minimum. Some additional requirements are needed. One of them is CL spacing of max 15m.

Regards.

[Sir George Cayley]

Gameover,

In Europe runway distances are declared in metres so it took me some time to divide feet to make metres; so for the centreline it's 900m in 2 sections - 600m red/white and then 300m all red.

Edge lights only change to amber where there's no centreline - it's called the caution zone. If the airport upgrades to a coded runway centreline then the amber edge can be removed, but many don't.

Again, in Europe, at airports with CAT ll/lll ops and a green and green/yellow twy centreline system blue edge lights are often reduced to difficult curves or edge of apron.

Over the pond our American cousins seem to run blue edge lights down every taxiway leading to the phrase 'sea of blue' - totally over the top imho.

Have a look at the CAA regs in Ch6 of CAP168:
CAP 168: Licensing of Aerodromes | Publications | CAA (http://www.caa.co.uk/application.aspx?catid=33&pagetype=65&appid=11&mode=detail&id=232)

Hope this helps

Sir George Cayley