Airfield guidance signs

What airfield guidance signs do

The airside of an airport can cover a large area of aprons, taxiways and runways, laced with intersections. Airfield guidance signs — also called taxiway guidance signs — give a taxiing pilot the information they need to move safely: where they are, when to stop and hold for clearance, and which way to turn to reach a taxiway or destination.

Three colours, three jobs

Read the colour first — it tells you what kind of message the sign carries:

• Mandatory instruction signs carry a white inscription on a red background. Red is an instruction: stop and hold until cleared. The key example is the runway-holding position sign at the entrance to a runway.
• Information signs carry a black inscription on a yellow background, always with an arrow: they point elsewhere — the way to a taxiway, runway or destination.
• Location signs invert the colours — a yellow inscription on a black background — and say only here: the taxiway or runway you are on right now. A location sign combines with both of the other kinds: it sits beside the red runway designation at a holding position just as naturally as among the arrows of a direction array, which is why it is its own category here.

ICAO, EASA and FAA terms

The signs are the same across the standards, but the taxonomy differs slightly. ICAO Annex 14 Volume I and EASA CS-ADR-DSN use two formal families — mandatory instruction sign and information sign — and file the location sign inside the information family. The FAA instead describes each sign by its own equipment type — mandatory instruction signs are type L-858R, taxiway location signs L-858L, and direction/destination signs L-858Y — treating location signs as a category of their own, as these pages do. The FAA also adds sign types that ICAO and EASA do not standardise, such as the runway distance remaining sign.

Sign anatomy

Airfield guidance signs share a common anatomy: a coloured face, a legend of characters sized for the viewing distance, and (on direction and destination signs) arrows. When several messages share one array, a vertical black line delineates adjacent messages so they cannot be misread as one. The signs are built from durable materials but made frangible, so they break away cleanly if struck by an aircraft, and many are illuminated for night use.

Visual index

• Mandatory instruction signs
  • Runway-holding position sign
• Information signs
  • Direction signs
  • Destination signs
• Location signs
• Runway distance remaining signs
• Markers & special
  • Taxiway ending marker
  • Arresting gear markers
  • VOR checkpoint sign

The mandatory instruction and information families list their full set of sign types on their own pages. The sign regulations section covers the standards behind them — ICAO, EASA, FAA and the national authorities.

Draw them in Wingframe

Wingframe draws airfield guidance signs to ICAO, EASA and FAA geometry, so the sign you design matches the standard it will be built and inspected against. See what Wingframe does.