17/35 R Traditional Cache

When airport designers first develop the plan for a new airport, they look at the historical weather data to determine the best direction for the runway. Runways are then constructed with the prevailing wind in mind.

Runways are numbered according to their magnetic compass orientation. They consist of two numbers, one at each end of the runway, each being 180° opposite to each other. The number is formed by rounding the compass bearing of one end of the runway up or down to the nearest 10° and dropping the last digit. If this results in a single digit then a zero is added to the left of it. For example, if a runway is aligned north-south, then it is 18/36, not 00/18. The lower number is always listed first.

If the compass heading of a runway is 122° you would round it down to 120 and drop the last digit, leaving you with 12. This would be called Runway 12/30.

If the compass heading of a runway is 37°, you would round it up to 40 and drop the last digit, leaving you with 4. Since this is a single digit, you add a zero to the beginning, giving you 04. This would be called Runway 04/22.

Runways have two ends. Each end is considered a different runway, even though it is the same actual runway surface. When an airport has multiple parallel runways, they may be in the same direction. When this happens, they assign a letter, either L, C, or R to the runway number.

Here is an example showing a drawing of runway 15L/33R and runway 15R/33L

The PE airport has two main runways. They are called runway 08/26 and runway 17/35. Runway 17/35 is only used a few times a week for commercial aircraft, when the wind direction is roughly north south. It is also used by the local air schools for crosswind training. Go to this site and click on the "FAPE_AERODROME_AD-01_17 Oct 2013" link to see the Port Elizabeth runway diagram.

This cache is a micro container hidden on the right side of runway 17/35. We hope that you will be lucky enough to see a plane touchdown while you are looking for the cache.