Shift of Earth’s Magnetic North Pole Closes Main Runway at Tampa International Airport
January 6th, 2011Via: Tampa Bay Online:
Scientists say the magnetic north pole is moving toward Russia and the fallout has reached — of all places — Tampa International Airport.
The airport has closed its primary runway until Jan. 13 to repaint the numeric designators at each end and change taxiway signage to account for the shift in location of the Earth’s magnetic north.
The closure of the west parallel runway will result in more activity on the east parallel runway and more noise for residential areas of south Tampa.
…
The Federal Aviation Administration required the runway designation change to account for what a National Geographic News report described as a gradual shift of the Earth’s magnetic pole at nearly 40 miles a year toward Russia because of magnetic changes in the core of the planet.
So uh, what about the other airports?
I’d say this is connected to the bird/fish kills.
my thoughts exactly Brandon…makes no sense it would be the only one.
Brandon,
Obviously it happens everywhere to some degree (pesky angular calculations around a sphere).
Most likely it’s only a rare occurrence, because of the ways the runways are marked. The runways are only marked with the tens and hundreds digits. That is…
North = 0/360 degrees = runway 36
East = 90 degrees = runway 09
South = 180 degrees = runway 18
West = 270 degrees = runway 27
The slow drift over 5 degrees takes an awful long time. Airports update as needed. Most people don’t notice, unless for some reason it makes the news.
The news could have been rephrased “airport undergoes normal maintenance, next weather and sports”
http://www.airnav.com/airport/KTPA
AirNav shows the runways to be at 184 and 004
https://pilotweb.nas.faa.gov/PilotWeb/notamRetrievalByICAOAction.do?method=displayByICAOs&reportType=RAW&formatType=DOMESTIC&retrieveLocId=TPA&actionType=notamRetrievalByICAOs
Above is the FAA’s NOTAM (NOTice to AirMen) notification system. Beyond the trivial numbering on the runway (and non-trivial updating of charts), the problem with ILS would be more significant. That could likely be because pilots could expect it to be 5 to 10 degrees less than indicated on the charts. 5 degrees doesn’t seem like a lot, but over a long distance, it’s very very significant.
It’s been a while since I’ve flown (as pilot, not passenger), so I may have missed something significant in the NOTAMs.
@MBerger47 – I agree with you. Earth is most likely going through a pole shift, north to south, east to weat.
Maybe we should all find a pair of shoes that we can velco weights to? Lest we just start flucking levitating without gravity to hold us down.
If it weren’t so bizarre with all the freak outs and death, this could get to be fun.
BTW – I have two sleep pads with lots and lots of magnets in them. Bought them years ago. Anything to help, one for me, one for Mom. When I sleep on the pads my soreness from yoga, or from using the computer, or gardening etc goes away like magic. Next thing you know, I’ll be putting rocks on my body at night to weigh me down for a good nights sleep.