These charts providing information about the provision of the facilities in the airport area, information about the runway, the taxiways, airport lights, etc. In order to explain this kind of charts we will use Jeppesen chart 10-9 of Ioannis Kapodistrias airport in Corfu.
At the top of such a chart, the following Information is displayed, from the left to the right:
- ICAO and IATA code.
- Apt Elev which is the elevation of the highest point of the airport's runways.
- Longitude and latitude of ARP (Airport Reference Point) located in the center of all the airport's runways.
- Chart's date.
- City, Country and airport's name.
- Directly below we can see some airport communication frequencies. Left is the frequency ATIS. The ATIS is a recorded message which gives information about the weather conditions at the airport, the active runways, Transition Altitude and specific information about the airport.
Next we can see the Communication frequency of the Ground and the Tower.
Passing to the next area of the chart we can see the airport diagram. Here we see the following information:
- In outline of the chart we see the scale of longitude and latitude.
- Runway's length in feet and meters.
- The name of each runway and its orientation to the magnetic North.
- Runway's threshold and its height from sea level.
- Length Scale in feet and meters.
All shapes in blue, refers to water like sea, rivers, lakes etc.
- Construction at 597 feet height.
- Various physical barriers and their heights.
- Various buildings and the airport's Terminal shown in black. AIS and MET indicating that the airport has ATIS and weather station. Taxiways are symbolized with the letters A, B, C, E . Here we must mention that taxiways, apron and various highways are in gray color.
- Here we can see the deviation of longitude from magnetic north in degrees.
This chart is collapsed by more charts. In larger airports there are other charts that show us the available parking gates and additional Information about the runways. On the other hand for smaller airports this Information is shown on one page. The following section shows the information on airport parking:
- Geographical coordinates for parking.
- Detailed Info of their positions in apron with the connecting taxiways and the way an aircraft can reach or leave it.
Additional runway Information
In this part of the 10-9 chart, we can see important information for lighting of the runways (if exist), their dimensions and the available length of its pavement. Also here we can also see specific Information of the airport, that a pilot must be aware of and also take-off restrictions depending on the visibility conditions.
- Information about runway's lighting. We can see runway 17 at first line and runway 35 below. MIRL (Medium Intensity Runway Lights) means that the airport has lights that show us the limits of the runway and it is moderate. Other airports have HIRL and RL High and standard brightness respectively. 60m is the distance from the left to the right column of lights on either side of the runway. PAPI shows us that the airport and the two runways has precision approach lights and that are located in the left side. (-L). Also the angle of descent defined by these lights is on 3 (angle 3.00o) and 3.08 (angle 3.08o) degrees.
- Available runway lenght in feet and meters.
- Available runway width.
- Important Information. Information when we should ask authorization to start engines.
- Information about when we can depart from the airport depending on current visibility.
- Especially when the airport is in low visibility procedure, it informs us that we must be able to see runway's center Line (RCLM) or during the night, the lights of the runway, at least 250m for category airport A, B and C and 300m for category D.
- In normal conditions this should be visible for all categories by at least 400m.
- When the runway lights are not in use and the runway center Line is not visible, the visibility for takeoff must be at least 500m.
For FlightSimmer.GR
Giannis Evagelinos
