today on the free pilot training channel we're going to be diving into the details on vfr sectionals specifically today we're going to be talking all about airports first let's take a look at the basic airport symbol which is a magenta circle these symbols let us know that in these locations we have other than hard surface runways in other words grass or dirt these could also mean that there is a hard surface runway here but it's less than one thousand five hundred feet long now as you can see here a lot of these magenta circles have letters or symbols inside of them here are a few examples of what you might find inside of these circles now while an empty circle indicates that this airfield is for public use this h here lets us know that this airfield is specifically for helicopters circles with an f inside like this one tell us that this airfield is specifically for an ultralight flight park now when you see this magenta circle with a u inside this means that the airfield is unverified this might mean that there's a lack of information on that runway or there might be some weird operating limitations that apply here circles with an r inside are probably the most common symbols these indicate restricted airports usually these are private airfields and you need permission prior to using these unless of course you're an emergency aircraft speaking of emergencies if you ever see this magenta circle with an x inside this indicates an abandoned airport typically these are only charted if they're at least 3000 feet long and that makes these great places to make an emergency landing now on rare occasion you might see the symbol with the word objectionable beside it the faa believes that there's something unsafe or hazardous about this airfield a lot of times it's some kind of obstacle that makes this airfield hazardous but you never know what's lurking at the end of the runway the next type of airport symbol you might run across is one like this if you look closely you'll see a small depiction of the runway surrounded by a solid magenta circle when we see this symbol we know that this airfield has a hard surface runway from 1 500 feet to 8 069 foot long i'm sorry that they chose such a random number for the upper limit of these runways comment below if you know the reason why they did this now notice some of these airports have little tick marks surrounding the airport symbol these mean that the airport is supposed to have fuel services but if you're going on a long trip i recommend calling first because sometimes these smaller airfields can run out of fuel now if you look closer you'll notice that this airport has a star on top of it this indicates that this airport has a rotating beacon and rotating beacons are important for a couple reasons first they make it easier to find the airport at night they also help you identify that you're at the correct type of airport for example take a look at this beacon on the top of this control tower at normal civilian airfields these beacons alternate between green and white similar to the way this beacon is flashing now military airfields on the other hand flash with one green and two quick white flashes green white white green white white now if you ever see a beacon flashing white yellow green that would indicate a heliport and obviously that's for helicopters so you wouldn't want to try to land there and last but not least alternating white and yellow lights indicate a water airport for seaplanes now while there's no requirement for them to do it some airports operate their beacon when the weather is below vfr minimums and when they do this they typically use the general vfr weather minimums of a thousand foot ceilings and three statute miles visibility before we continue with the lesson did you know that the free pilot training channel has its own merchandise store you can buy hoodies t-shirts and all kinds of different cool merchandise to show your friends that you're getting the best free pilot training available if you don't mind supporting this channel and looking cool at the same time be sure to check out that link in the description below now if you look back at our vfr sectional you'll notice that some of these airports are blue this lets us know that this airfield has a control tower that means anytime you see a magenta airfield these are untowered now take a look at this bigger airport in this class c air space just like the smaller airport we just mentioned this one's blue so we know it has a control tower if you'll notice this airport is no longer surrounded by a circle but now the runways are outlined with dark markings when we see this we know that this airport has at least one hard surface runway greater than 8069 feet long now take this with a grain of salt because if there are multiple runways they can be less than 8069 feet now check this out this airport also has a beacon but on these larger airfields they try to match it to the location on the airfield speaking of that take a look at this little dot on this airfield when you see these these depict a vor a vor dme or vortac in its approximate location on the field we'll talk more about those in a future lesson now i want to draw your attention to this little anchor this tells us that there's a c-plane base here this particular example is an untowered seaplane base but check out this one not only does it have a control tower but it also has fuel services now let's break down the airport information label on the first line we see the airport's name along with its location identifier on the second line notice the letter c t here followed by a frequency this lets us know that this airfield has a control tower which we already knew because the runways are blue and this is the frequency that it uses now check out this little star this means that the tower only operates part time if you wanted to see the hours that it operated you would have to look in the chart supplement this c stands for ctaf when the tower is not operational this frequency reverts to the common traffic advisory frequency now notice the frequency where we can get our weather in this case we have adis but different airfields have different weather reporting services that's a lesson for another day next we have our field elevation in feet above mean sea level and here at this airport the elevation is 55 msl now this l next to it lets us know that we have lighting in operation from sunset to sunrise and that little asterisk next to it indicates that some lighting limitations exist we'd have to look in the chart supplement to see exactly what those were further to the right this number tells us the length of our longest runway and hundreds of feet in other words the longest runway on this airfield is eleven thousand feet long now as i'm sure you're already aware in the standard traffic pattern you make left hand turns but some airports want you to make right patterns on some of the runways for one reason or another these are indicated right here by an rp followed by which runways are right patterns now this aoe you see here is not a normal informational note but it stands for airport of entry and this is a place where you can get customs and border services anytime you run across weird information like this on your vfr sectional be sure you pull out your aeronautical chart user's guide you can download this document for free from the faa's website and this is the best tool available for deciphering vfr sectionals i hope you enjoyed today's video on vfr sectionals if you did would you consider subscribing and be sure to check out these videos if you want to get yourself one step closer to that private pilot certificate