Graeme Wall wrote on 12 October 2011
07:46:54 ...
On 11/10/2011 23:45, Charles Ellson wrote:
On Tue, 11 Oct 2011 19:08:37 +0100, Graeme Wall
wrote:
On 11/10/2011 19:06, Alistair Gunn wrote:
In uk.railway Bruce twisted the electrons to say:

But it remains a taxiway that can be used as a runway *only in
emergencies*. The absence of any form of ILS and the absence of
proper taxiways when the emergency "runway" is in use tell the story.

So what's that parallel strip of concrete to the north of Runway 08L,
complete with a twin-jet airliner on it in Google Maps' satellite view
then?

That's the taxiway.

Apparently sometimes used as a runway and presumably thus requires the
above paintwork to allow that occasional use ?

Correct.

We're all getting confused here. Bruce claimed that 08L/26R was really
just a taxiway because:

- it could be used as a runway only in emergencies. Not true: it is
used whenever 08R/26L is unavailable, e.g. during maintenance. 08L/26R
is routinely in use as the operational runway for 3 hours every Thursday
morning if no runway maintenance is scheduled for that week.

- absence of ILS. True, but nevertheless it has full ICAO designation
as a runway.

- absence of proper taxiways when it's in use as a runway. As Alistair
Gunn pointed out (but his post was misinterpreted by Graeme and
Charles), there is an additional taxiway to the north of 08L which
functions as a taxiway at all times (shown as Taxiway J on the aerodrome
chart).
--
Richard J.
(to email me, swap 'uk' and 'yon' in address)