You have to remember, all runways at the North Pole, will be 18, headed south.
dirkdj wrote:
ou have to remember, all runways at the North Pole, will be 18, headed south
are you sure that holds on a sphere?
I also think the landings on the north pole are on the Geographic and not Magnetic north pole.
Runway headings are magnetic.
Noe wrote:
Runway headings are magnetic.
Not necessarily in polar regions, I would think…
Airborne_Again wrote:
Not necessarily in polar regions, I would think…
Quite possibly. Another case is aircraft carriers.
Probably off-topic,
Navigation to the north pole: like any other point in the earth nothing special you need to be able to see the sun or stars and carry two clocks:
- One with local time from your live position, and
- One with local time from a fixed known position on the map
Then you have to follow a track that keeps the same time on the two clocks, you are at the NP when April sun at noon time is along the horizon :)
The only limitation with sun-based navigation to the NP is that West/East become sensitive as you get closer to the NP, so difficult to keep the two clocks in sync
So, depending on your precision for angles (1 sec) and time (1 sec) you may start to circle (1nm) around it, but the same applies when flying to the “center” of Nevada desert on “a universal GPS clocks” (a bit like VOR tracking on top of VOR)
For logistics, I guess it is a bit cold/remote out there…
More information can be found in today’s google bar search:
https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/VgJyYKoa1d8DIw
Firstly, I beg to differ with Dirk, I think that if the runway has any length, then all runways at the north pole will be 36, assuming they pass through the Pole.
There really is no concept of magnetic headings at the geographic North Pole, as the compass points straight down to earth and is completely jammed. Charts for the Arctic region, including approach charts, tend to be in true rather than magnetic, and it is therefore important to set up your GNSS navigator to true rather than magnetic.
I made use of solar navigation as I crossed the pole, and I agree that it is very simple. Provided you know the time, you can work out exactly what heading you are on from the position of the sun.
However knowing what heading/track to take from the North Pole is another matter. I set up my HSI before I arrived to give me return I required as I passed the pole.
That was also helpful because I didn’t orbit over the poll, because I wanted to do a round the world trip in one minute.
Now that I am back from a trip abroad, I can post some pictures.
The North Pole:
GPS Coverage at the Pole:
The approach to Borneo:
The aircraft that flies to Borneo:
Changing the starter motor at Eureka:
The HSI at the Pole (making Dirk’s point):
I have hundreds of pictures and am open to requests 
I have seen some Siri autocorrects in what I wrote (spoke) earlier.
The main one is that I did do a Rate 2 orbit, in order to circumnavigate the world in one minute.
Timothy wrote:
There really is no concept of magnetic headings at the geographic North Pole, as the compass points straight down to earth and is completely jammeI am sure you mean magnetic North Pole. But I agree that a compass would be rather useless at the geographic pole as well due to the inclination.
