An airport in Tampa, Florida, has had to temporarily close
its runways to keep up with Earth's magnetic north pole,
which is drifting toward Russia at
a rate of 40 miles per year.
Fox News reports that the international airport was forced to adjust the signs on its busiest runway Thursday because pilots depend on the magnetic fields to navigate. The runway will be closed until Jan. 13, and will re-open with new taxiway signs that indicate its new location on aviation charts, the Tampa Bay Tribune reports.
Paul Takemoto, a spokesman for the FAA, says the Earth's magnetic fields are constantly in flux -- but rarely so much so that runway signage needs to be changed. "You want to be absolutely precise in your compass heading," he told Fox. "To make sure the precision is there that we need, you have to make these changes."
[Rewind: Scary gaffe adds to week of airline mishaps]
"The Earth's poles are changing constantly, and when they change more than three degrees, that can affect runway numbering," FAA spokesperson Kathleen Bergen told Fox News. It's unclear whether any other airports will have to adjust their runways.
Earth's magnetic field, which still flummoxes those who study it, "is thought to be generated deep inside the planet," LiveScience writer Jeanna Bryner explains. "An inner core of solid iron is surrounded by an outer core of molten iron. They rotate at different rates, and the interaction between the regions creates what scientists call a 'hydromagnetic dynamo.' It's something like an electric motor, and it generates a magnetic field akin to a giant bar magnet."
Sometimes, the poles completely flip -- and presumably when that happens, many bigger changes are afoot than modest tweaks to airport signs. The last time the planet experienced a polarity flip was 780,000 years ago.
A glass
cockpit is an aircraft cockpit that features
electronic instrument displays. Where a traditional cockpit
relies on numerous mechanical gauges to display information,
a glass cockpit utilizes several
computer displays that can be adjusted to display flight
information as needed. This simplifies aircraft operation and
navigation and allows pilots to focus only on the most pertinent
information. They are also highly popular with airline companies
as they usually eliminate the need to employ a flight engineer.
Early glass
cockpits, found in the Boeing 737 Classic, 757 and 767-200/-300,
and in the Airbus A300-600 and A310, used EFIS to display
attitude and navigational information only, with traditional
mechanical gauges retained for airspeed, altitude and vertical
speed. Later glass cockpits, found in the Boeing 747-400,
767-400, 777, A320, and later Airbuses, have replaced completely
the numerous mechanical gauges and warning lights present in
previous generation aircraft.
Prior to the
1970s, air transport operations were not considered sufficiently
demanding to require advanced equipment like electronic flight
displays. Also, computer technology was not at a level where
sufficiently light and powerful circuits were available. The
increasing complexity of transport aircraft, the advent of
digital systems and the growing air traffic congestion around
airports began to change that.
