I always love it when they have to rename/repaint the runway because the
magnetic heading for the runway changed.. and to the non-informed... no..
the earth did not move to change the runway..

I'm betting some ol'timers out there remember when the leading zero was
painted on... 05
so it was Runway zero five

BT

"Gary Drescher" wrote in message
...
"Lakeview Bill" wrote in message
. ..
The magnetic heading of Runway 5 can be any heading between 046 and 054.

From the Pilot/Controller Glossary: RUNWAY - ...Runways are normally
numbered in relation to their magnetic direction rounded off to the
nearest
10 degrees...

Go to http://www.airnav.com/ and examine some of their airport
information
sheets.

For example at KIGQ, with a magnetic variation of 02W (1995), RWY 18 has
a
heading of: 182 magnetic, 180 true.

So, it really is best to think of a "runway number" not as a number, but
as
a name composed of numeric characters 0-9 plus "L", "R", "C".

If you don't think of the runway number as a number (corresponding to an
approximate heading), then how do you form an expectation about which
direction to fly to enter, say, a downwind leg for a particular runway?

--Gary