Runway Centreline Extensions

These very handy little lines can be displayed on the map for your planned departure and arrival airports.

Turning them on:

Tap the Map Settings button (two cogs icon, top right of En Route screen) > View Items and select Runway Centrelines.

What do they display?

These extensions project out the centreline exactly five nautical miles from each threshold, with a label outlining the runway name.  These are able to be displayed on any type of map.

Why is one runway green?

Airports that also feature a METAR station on the grounds, have the added bonus of highlighting the most into wind runway.  Note, however that this is NOT necessarily the duty runway at an airport (controlled or otherwise).  For operational reasons ATC or local traffic may use a different runway.

How come it only appears for some airports?

Not all airports in our NavData database contain encoded runway length/alignment information.  Certified, Military and Registered airports, will generally have this data. Most ALAs, for example, don’t have the necessary information (however, there are a couple of exceptions for larger ALAs).   In New Zealand, all known paved runways will display the extensions.   Private airstrips will not display the extensions.

I’ve turned it on, but they still aren’t showing!

No worries, there are a couple of things to make sure you have in place:

• Runway Centrelines is turned on (see above).
• You have a flight plan open and it contains one or more airports.
• The airport you’re looking at is designated as either a takeoff or landing point – runways for intermediate turning point airports (i.e. that you overfly) will not be displayed.
• The airport has the necessary data (i.e. is a Certified, Military or Registered airport)

So, turn them on for your next flight plan.  They’re great for building a mental picture of what the traffic pattern may look like when you arrive at an airport!