No centreline lights at OZ airports

[Leon H]

have been to most capital city airports and looking out of windows, there doesnt appear to be any runway centreline lights - just lights that surround the edge of runways.

thought this was bit unusual for major gateways like SYD and BNE, and contrary other airports in Asia, Europe, etc.

Is there a reason why theres no centreline lights here?

[Radi K]

Normally only needed for CATII or CATIII ILS approaches.

Some airports have them but don't switch them on unless it's low visibility operations.

[Owen H]

Melbourne, Sydney (on 16R/34L) and Brisbane (01/19) all have centreline lighting.

However, certainly in the case of Melbourne, they have been unserviceable for a while due to runway works, and I know Sydney's have also been unserviceable, although I'm sure Nigel will be able to tell you more about why (I don't know ).

You might notice, however, that our runways don't seem to have the same "lit up like a Christmas tree" effect that overseas airports do, and that has to do with low visibility approaches, which you'll only see in Melbourne.

[Andrew Coggan]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqXChohXlIA

Centreline lighting in this video I just found. RWY16R here in Sydney.

[Nigel C]

Thanks Owen,
The centreline lighting at Sydney has been out since about last October when the runway pavement resheet was started. There are still some areas that need to be re-done as part of defect rectification (hence the runway grooving hasn't been completed in some parts like between Kilo and Alfa-5), but they can't do the paving during winter because of the colder temperatures.
I believe they'll resume the works in late October or November, so the centreline lighting should be restored once that's been done. Grooving of the rectified areas will start about 6 weeks after the pavement has been laid.

So now you know!

Cheers
Nigel

[Adrian B]

Interesting that the vid Andrew posted shows the large hump in the middle of 16R/34L. Nigel is the peak close to 07/25?

[Jason H]

The peak is over the General Holmes Drive tunnel I'm pretty sure, to strengthen it.

[Nigel C]

The tunnel is where the peak is located, but it was there before they did the A380 strengthening works. I believe it's about a 6m climb from the lowest point on the runway to the crest on the tunnel.

[Darren Butterworth]

Owen - I get to enjoy the Christmas tree when they do their testing from home. I usually notice it on the odd Thursday night and they really crank them up.

[Nigel C]

Darren, the light testing is done every Thursday, but each runway is only done every second week. Rwy 16R/34L is done on one night, and the following week 07/25 and 16L/34R are done. This probably explains why you only see it on the 'odd' Thursday night.