FACTORS AFFECTING AIRPORT LIGHTING:

✈ Airport classification
✈ Amount of traffic
✈ Availability of power
✈ Nature of aircraft using the airport
✈ Type of night operation plans
✈ Type of landing surfaces provided
✈ Weather condition, etc.
✈ To achieve uniformity and to guide pilots for
unfamiliar airports, colours and general
arrangement of airport lights are
standardized.
✈ Airport lights are kept clean, well-
maintained, checked regularly for faulty
bulbs and replacement.
✈ Tough and laborious job, major airport
contains 30,000 lights
✈ Provision of emergency power supplies,
which can take over in seconds in case of
any power failure.
ELEMENTS OF AIRPORT LIGHTING:

✈ Airport beacon
✈ Approach lighting
✈ Apron and hangar lighting
✈ Boundary lighting
✈ Lighting of landing direction
indicator
✈ Lighting of wind direction indicator
✈ Runway lighting
✈ Taxiway lighting
✈ Threshold lighting
1) AIRPORT BEACON:
✈ Beacon- strong beam of light- used to
indicate any geographical location-
situated slightly above the horizontal-
rotated to produce flashing light to an
observer.
✈ It gives out white and green flashes in the
horizontal directions 180◦ apart.
Flashes are visible for the pilot from any
direction of approach and it indicates the
approximate situation of an airport
equipped for the night operations.
✈ Rotates at six revolutions per minute-
 (contd.)
✈ Obstruction not cleared yet- then separate
tower is provided for installation of
✈ Code
rotating beacon.
indicates light provided
beacon-
high to clear sufficiently
all obstructions.
✈ It consists of two 500 watts bulb with
green colour screen.
✈ Continuously flashes a Morse code
signal
designating the airport.
Airport Beacon Lighting:
 APPROACH LIGHTING:
✈ Before runway begins- sequence of high-
intensity lighting arrangement for a
length of 900m.
✈ Helps pilots to check if the aircraft is centered
correctly or not.
✈ Gives way to touchdown zone lights from
threshold of the runway.
✈ Normally mounted on pedestals-varying
heights-to accommodate any irregularities in
ground- ensuring the lights themselves are in
level.
Arrangements adopted for approach lightings:
1)Calvert system
1) Calvert system:
✈ Widely used in Europe and
other parts of the world.
✈ Developed by E.S.Calvert in
Great Britain.
✈ In this, there are six
transverse rows of lights
of variable length placed
at a c/c distance of 15om.
✈ In this, the roll
guidance is principally
provided by the
transverse rows of
 2) ICAO system:
✈ Known as centre-
line
configuration.
✈ In this, there is only one
crossbar 300m from the
threshold.
✈ In this, the roll guidance is
provided by bars 4.2m in
length, placed at 30m c/c on
the extended centre-line of
the runway and a single
crossbar 300m from the
threshold.
✈ The 4.2m long bars
consists of 5 closely
 BOUNDARY LIGHTING:
✈ Entire boundary of the airfield is
provided
lights with
at a c/c distance of aboutwith
90 height
m
of about 75cm from the ground.
✈ If fence is provided along the boundary,
then these lights should be placed inside
the fence at a distance of about 3m.
✈ For indicating hazardous approach, the
boundary
lights are provided withmarker
re
lights d
LIGHTING OF LANDING DIRECTION
INDICATOR:
✈ The landing direction indicator is
illuminated with suitable lighting
arrangement so that the airport can be
used at night also.
 LIGHTING OF WIND DIRECTION
INDICATOR:
✈ The wind direction indicator is illuminated
by four 200 watts angle reflectors
placed 1.8m above the top of the cone
for providing a continuous lighting at any
position of the cone.
✈ This arrangement grants the use of
wind direction indicator at night and during
bad weathers.
 RUNWAY LIGHTING:
✈ After crossing the threshold, the pilot
must complete a touchdown and roll out
on the runway.
✈ The planning of runway lighting is carried
out in such a way that the pilot gets enough
information on alignment, lateral
displacement, roll and distance.
✈ The lights are so arranged so that they
form a visual pattern which the pilot can
interpret easily.
✈ During night landings, flood lights were
used in olden days. But now runway edge
lights are adopted.
✈ Narrow gauge pattern- the
most precise runway
alignment which is widely
✈ used.
It makes use centre-
of touc
anddow zone lights linefor operations
h
n
poor in very
visibility.
✈ Black hole effect: As the pilot
crosses the threshold, and
continues to look along the
centre-line, the principal source
of guidance, namely, the edge
lights has moved far to each side
in the peripheral vision. As a
result, the central area appears
black and the pilot is virtually
flying blind for the peripheral
✈ This can be eliminated by adopting the
narrow gauge pattern of the runway
lighting, the central portion gets illuminated
and the black hole effect is partly eliminated.
✈ The narrow gauge pattern forms a channel
of light of 18m width up to 1140m from the
threshold and beyond this distance, the
closely spaced lights are placed along the
centre-line of the runway extending up to
the other end of the runway.
✈ colour
All the and
lights
of provided
flush onthey
i.e. the do
runway
not are
white in
protrude
more 1cmtype,
above the surface of
✈ than
The pavement.
edg lights are ofelevat type and
runway e
are white colour they edthe last
except for
400m if an instrument runway facing
the pilot which are of yellow colour to
 TAXIWAY LIGHTING:
✈ The pilots have to manoeuvre the
aircrafts on a system of taxiways to and
from the terminal and hangar areas
either after landing or on the way to take
off
✈ The taxiway system is much complicated
on large airports and therefore it is
necessary to provide adequate lighting at
night and at daytime when the visibility is
very poor.
 Design considerations to be
applied to the visual aids for
the taxiways:
✈ For normal exits- centreline terminated at
the edge of the runway.
✈ At taxiway intersections, the lights
continue across the intersection. They are
placed at a distance of 6m to 7.5m along
the straight length and 3m to
3.6m along the curves.
✈ The complete route from the runway to
the apron should be easily identified.
✈ The edge lights should not extend more
than 75cm
✈ The exits from the runways should be so lighted
that the pilots are able to locate the exits 360m to
400m ahead of the point of turn.
✈ The intersection of taxiways and runways-taxiway
✈ crossings should be clearly marked.
✈ The lights on the tangent portion are placed not
more than 60m apart and the distance from the
edge along the curves and the intersections to
facilitate easy identification. The spacing varies
from 6m for curve of radius 4.5m to 60m for a
curve of 300m.
 (contd.)
✈ There should be adequate guidance
along the taxiway.
✈ The taxiway edge lights are blue and the
taxiway centre lights are green.
✈ The taxiway should be clearly identified
so that they
are not confused with the runways.
 THRESHOLD LIGHTING:
✈ Identification of threshold- a major
factor for decision of the pilot to land
or not to land
✈ For this reason, the region near the
threshold is given with special lighting
treatment.
✈ At large airports: threshold is identified
by a complete line of green lights
extending across the entire width of the
runway. They must be of
semi-flash type, i.e. protruding not more than
12cm above the surface.
 (contd.)
✈ At small airports, the threshold is
identified by four lights on each side of
the threshold. They can be of elevated
type, i.e. protruding more than 12cm
above the surface.
✈ The threshold lights in the direction of
landing are green and in the opposite
direction, they are red to indicate the end
of the runway.