Quote:
Originally Posted by drummer
Quick question for you airport/aviation enthusiasts: Do you ever have runways that run East/West instead of North/South? I know that some are NE/SW, NW/SE, etc., on occasion, but I don't know that I've personally seen one running true East and true West. If it does happen, it seems to be less frequent. Why is that? I'm just curious and figured at least one of you guys would know the answer to that.
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Runways are generally constructed to run in the direction of the prevailing winds. Perpendicular to the prevailing winds would require the sometimes dangerous crosswind landings. So if the prevailing wnds are from the north or south, like in Austin, ideally you'd want north to south runways. If you have the luxury of land space, having an east west runway would be nice when you have crosswind conditions. That being said, I believe our old airport was more east to west on the main runway. On the west coast near the Pacific, the runways are generally east to west facing into the prevailing winds off the ocean.