Gear Up: Disoriented, but Not Lost

Dick Karl

Friday, June 03, 2011 at 12:56 AM ET

Verified

** Ed and Dick check out the new signage at
KTPA.**

Key Takeaways:

Airports, such as Tampa International, periodically renumber their runways to account for the Earth's shifting magnetic north pole, as aviation navigation systems rely on magnetic headings.
This renumbering involves substantial operational work, including repainting runway designations, updating illuminated signs, issuing new navigation charts, and performing flight checks, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The FAA mandates these changes because traditional air navigation (like VORs) is based on magnetic numbers, making the updates necessary despite the existence of GPS.
While largely unnoticeable to the general public, the subtle changes in magnetic headings over decades can alter flight paths, potentially shifting aircraft noise impacts to different communities.

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(May 2011) DID THE EARTH MOVE for you? Good. Me too.

After 28 years of taxiing out to runway 36R at Tampa International Airport, where I have based an airplane since moving here, I am now instructed to taxi out to 01R. After all those years of thinking of my home airport as an elegant north-south-east-west kind of geographic purist, I must come to grips with the fact that something has changed.