One of the local GA airports in my area recently got an FAA improvement grant. They got new taxiway lights—real ones, to replace the old blue reflectors—and new paint for all of the surface and runway markings. The hold-short signs at the ends of the runway are now carefully mounted, bright red and well-lit at night. The taxiway signs are bright yellow or black. A couple of older pilots grumbled. “Now we look like San Francisco International Airport,” one said. He missed that old-time aerodrome feel. But he missed the point, too. A pilot from here flying into San Francisco International might be overwhelmed by its sheer size, but almost every sign and marking there would be familiar and the meaning known.
Lights and markings are important. My first instructor put it this way: “At night, make sure that you have blue lights on both sides,” he told me. “Otherwise you’ll be in the weeds.” That advice applies at SFO or ORD just as surely as it does at your nearby municipal strip. “And keep your nosewheel on that yellow line,” he went on. “That way, if you hit something, it’s not your fault.”
