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Runway Piano Keys
Spinrecovery
Topic Author
Spinrecovery created the topic: Runway Piano Keys
Hi,
Just curiosity, I am just wondering how wide and how long of each piano key and the length between them. Does it depend on the length and width of the runway? The wider and the longer the runway the longer and wider the piano keys. Couldn't it be different shapes and how long has the piano keys been around?
Cheers
Gidday Spinrecovery. I hope you were sober when you wrote this one! If you have a look at AIP AD 1.1-10 Figure 12, there seems to be no relationship between the length of the piano keys and the length of the runway. I don't see an reference to the actual length of the piano keys, but it looks as though they are always the same length. I have never heard of or read about the history of the piano key markings, but it might be an interesting project to investigate it [maybe via google].
Also, I'm not sure what key they're painted in. Maybe C major, B flat or G???
The piano keys are 30m long (unless memory serves me wrong) and apparently the number of stripes indicates the width of the runway according to the following table (taken from the FAA but it might apply over here too):
Width vs Stripes
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60 feet (18 m) - 4
75 feet (23 m) - 6
100 feet (30 m) - 8
150 feet (45 m) - 12
200 feet (60 m) - 16
