Runway Lengths

[Thorsden 0]

Hi

 

I hope that I'm posting in an appropriate forum.

 

I'm building a simple web page to display airport information when I input an ICAO  code.

 

I can't get the runway lengths out of the world data database. I suspect that it needs calculating by adding together a selection of individual items to produce the whole, but it's beyond me at the moment.

 

Can anyone point me in the right direction of what data I need to extract, filter and add to get this figure?

 

Many thanks

 

Bob

[Thorsden 0]

Hi

 

I've found the answer in using Great Circle calculations and the co-ordinates for tthe ends of the runways included in the data file.

 

Even on short runways using a simple pythagorus triangle solution add in too many errors.

 

The formula in Excel is

 

=ACOS(COS(RADIANS(90-A2)) *COS(RADIANS(90-A3)) +SIN(RADIANS(90-A2)) *SIN(RADIANS(90-A3)) *COS(RADIANS(B2-B3))) *6371

Co-ordinates in A2,B2 and A3,B3

 

Thanks to BLueMM for the answer. Multiply this result by 1000 to convert to metres in length.

 

This formula gives a 2m error on the published length of Heathrows 3904m runway using the data in the current airport data file.

 

Bob