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:

Tampa International Airport renumbered its runways (e.g., 36R to 01R) despite their physical location remaining unchanged, a necessary adjustment due to the continuous shifting of Earth's magnetic north pole.
Aviation navigation systems, such as runway headings and VORs, rely on magnetic north, compelling airports to periodically update runway numbers to ensure alignment with current magnetic variations and maintain safety.
This renumbering process is complex and costly, involving the removal and repainting of runway markings, updating illuminated signs, and reissuing navigation charts, with Tampa International's project costing around $325,000.

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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.