Good airport signage helps pilots navigate their way around an unfamiliar airport and is important for safety by helping to identify crucial intersections and crossing runways. Taxiway striping and signs work just like roadway stop signs and traffic lights to help prevent traffic conflicts. There are six types of airport signs. Mandatory instruction signs, location signs, direction signs, destination signs.
information signs, and runway distance remaining signs. Mandatory instruction signs have a red background with white text. They are used to identify an entrance to a runway or critical area, or an area where an aircraft is prohibited from entering. These signs are most prominently used as runway holding position signs and are located at the same locations as runway holding position markings, alerting the pilot.
where the runway environment begins. The runway numbers on the sign are arranged to indicate which direction the beginning of each runway is. In this example, 1533 indicates that the beginning of runway 15 is to the left, and the beginning of runway 33 is to the right. This is not to be confused with which direction you need to turn to take off on a specific runway.
If you were assigned to take off on runway 33 from your current location, you would need to turn left, even though the number 33 is on the right side of the sign. Keep in mind that these signs can also exist on runways, when the runway you are on intersects another runway. If the intersection is not at a 90 degree angle, then arrows indicating the direction of the runway are also used. If you're at a taxiway that intersects with the beginning of the takeoff runway, then only that runway name will be listed on the sign. Just like runway hold signs, these mandatory instruction signs are also used with the ILS critical area.
This time, the sign will contain the letters ILS. The final mandatory instruction sign we'll discuss is the sign prohibiting aircraft entry into an area. This sign is typically used on a taxiway intended to be used for one-way traffic or on a vehicle road so aircraft don't mistake it as a taxiway.
The next type of sign we'll discuss is the location sign. Location signs are used to identify either a taxiway or runway on which the aircraft is located. The sign consists of a black background with yellow text and a yellow border.
The text will either be the runway or taxiway name. as appropriate. To go along with location signs, there are also direction signs. Unlike location signs, these signs have a yellow background with black text and are accompanied with an arrow.
With these signs placed just prior to intersections, pilots can know what the names of the intersecting taxiways are. In this example, a pilot seeing this would be on taxiway alpha. Taxiway Echo is at a 90 degree angle both left and right.
Taxiway Foxtrot is to the left at a 45 degree angle and Taxiway Tango is to the right at a 45 degree angle. Similar to direction signs, destination signs look identical to direction signs but instead instruct a pilot how to get to a certain location. These signs can indicate directions to FBOs, terminals, customs, fueling areas and other locations.
Next comes information signs. These signs use the same black text on yellow background as the previous types of signs. However, these signs are used to provide pilots with information on such things as applicable radio frequencies and noise abatement procedures. Finally, the last sign we'll cover is the runway distance remaining sign. These signs consist of white text on a black background and are located on one or both sides of the runway.
to indicate the distance of runway remaining in thousands of feet. A sign with the number 3 indicates that at that location, there are 3,000 more feet of runway remaining.