Do Not Land

That's new to me, too.

Familiar with the big "X" painted at/near the the closed end of the runway, as so are you I presume.

Makes sense, the painted X one can't see (at night) until about ready to touchdown. (Assuming landing light(s) happen to be working. :)

Interesting you should mention the subject, since I was thinking about this the other day. The then-current news story was of an airliner cleared to land on runway 'whatever'...and then nearly came down on the adjacent taxiway occupied by four other fully-loaded liners, apparently missing the tail of one by a scarily-few feet.

Not a pilot, but one always likes to suppose there are more-or-less unmistakable indications of where to put down...and where not to. I fully understand it's a stress-laden few moments, with limited visibility and a lot going on...but still....

gregbale

one always likes to suppose there are more-or-less unmistakable indications of where to put down...and where not to.

When flying visually, not so much

....until fairly close to the runway.

It is up to the pilot to understand how runways are numbered (and also left, right, middle and stuff) and to line up appropriately.

It's a bit different when 'flying on instruments', as the media likes to say.

Reminds me of an excerpt from "The Big E".

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Enterprise launched searches that afternoon.  Aircraft recovered on land.  Two SBD's came back and called in to the tower on one of the fields, got no response and decided to land anyway, being on fumes.  First one touched down and all kinds of equipment and trucks, etc., were on the runway.  He managed to miss everything and got stopped.  Second one landed and had the other SBD to avoid as well.  Neither aircraft had a scratch.

Boss was totally unhappy, as he had all that equipment placed to make a landing impossible, and two SBD's made it in after dark and without any lighting at all.

It brings to mind the horrible accidents of years past, when airliners collided with maintenance equipment left along the side of runways. In some cases the aircraft was able to be stopped safely after the collision, in others there were fatalities.

In fairness, most were due to either closed runway takeoffs, night operations or poor visibilty. The vehicles with lighted high level "X" symbols would be the most likely to prevent that from happening.

Parked at both runway ends, where the aircraft can't enter without hitting the markers makes perfect sense. The crews at that airport are thinking clearly.

Patrick

At the far left of this photo is a big X, lighted with strobes. It would be very bad form for a pilot to try to use that runway during the race. BTW: That's Albert Whitted Airport in St. Petersburg, right on Tampa Bay.

Ordinarily runways have symbols, an array of white lines, three or four, parallel and side by side, like   l l l  as a symbol of the end of the runway.  You are supposed to touch down on or beyond those symbols, not before, even if there is pavement before that symbol.

Like this:

These are normally used for temporary closure of the runway for maintenance or problems on the runway.

Yah, those are normal. We see them anytime the airport closes a runway for a short time.

For a longer closer they paint a big X over the numbers.

The precision runway markings are above,

Basicly the bars are every 500 ft. We aim for 1000 ft touchdown.

Don Stauffer

Ordinarily runways have symbols, an array of white lines, three or four, parallel and side by side, like   l l l  as a symbol of the end of the runway.  You are supposed to touch down on or beyond those symbols, not before, even if there is pavement before that symbol.