{"id":3043,"date":"2019-01-28T14:44:02","date_gmt":"2019-01-28T14:44:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/monroeengineering.com\/blog\/?p=2703"},"modified":"2019-02-11T16:37:16","modified_gmt":"2019-02-11T16:37:16","slug":"what-is-an-aeronautical-beacon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/monroeengineering.com\/blog\/what-is-an-aeronautical-beacon\/","title":{"rendered":"What is an Aeronautical Beacon?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ever notice colored flashing lights at the top of a tower structure at an airport or landmark? Or maybe wondered how a pilot knows the difference between airports and landmarks at night? The aeronautical beacon is one of the ways pilots can differentiate the different locations by the colors of the beacons.<\/p>\n<h2><b>Airport Beacons: Not what they used to be.<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Hearing the word airport and beacon together in the 21<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">st<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> century might make you think about Wi-Fi hotspots in a large terminal, but that wasn\u2019t always the case. 100 years ago, airmail pilots flying biplanes had to find their way without any modern electronics. Flying over the dark prairie to deliver mail at night was a dangerous occupation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>In 1919 an Army airman by the name of Donald Bruner had farmers and mail employees light a series of bonfires he could follow to his destination at night. By 1923 the Post office had completed a network of lighted beacons every 15 to 25 miles meant to be bright enough to be seen for 40 miles, depending on the weather of course.<\/p>\n<p>Airports were identified by rotating beacons. While the stationary beacons have been lost to history, airports still use rotating beacons today! At night you can see them, but they are also sometimes on in the day time when the ceiling is less than 1,000 feet or the ground visibility is less than 3 miles. Here are the color combinations of beacons still in use today to identify airports. &nbsp;Certainly not necessary with today\u2019s electronics, but there for a pilot to follow home on a rainy night just in case.<\/p>\n<h3><b>2 Lights<\/b><\/h3>\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">White and Green = Lighted land airport<\/span><\/h4>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/monroeengineering.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/light-tower-02.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2704 alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/monroeengineering.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/light-tower-02-300x188.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"188\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">White and Yellow = Lighted water airport<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/monroeengineering.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/light-tower-03.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2705 alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/monroeengineering.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/light-tower-03-300x188.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"188\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">White and Red = Landmark or navigational point<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/monroeengineering.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/light-tower-04.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2706 alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/monroeengineering.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/light-tower-04-300x188.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"188\"><\/a><\/p>\n<h3><b>3 Lights<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Green, Yellow, and White = Lighted heliport<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/monroeengineering.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/light-tower-05.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2707 alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/monroeengineering.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/light-tower-05-300x188.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"188\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">White, Green, Amber \u2014 Hospital and\/or Emergency Services Heliport<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/monroeengineering.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/light-tower-07.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2708 alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/monroeengineering.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/light-tower-07-300x188.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"188\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">White, White, Green = Military Airport<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Although the same color combination as lighted land airport beacons, they are differentiated by two quick white flashes between the green flashes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/monroeengineering.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/light-tower-06.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2709 alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/monroeengineering.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/light-tower-06-300x188.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"188\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ever notice colored flashing lights at the top of a tower structure at an airport or landmark? Or maybe wondered how a pilot knows the difference between airports and landmarks at night? The aeronautical beacon is one of the ways &hellip; <a class=\"continue-reading\" href=\"https:\/\/monroeengineering.com\/blog\/what-is-an-aeronautical-beacon\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3058,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[139,506],"tags":[134,135,136,137,138,140,141,42,142],"class_list":["post-3043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-did-you-know","category-history","tag-aeronautical","tag-aerospace","tag-airport","tag-beacon","tag-did-you-know","tag-fun-fact","tag-history","tag-info","tag-lights"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What is an Aeronautical Beacon? | Did You Know? | OneMonroe<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/monroeengineering.com\/blog\/what-is-an-aeronautical-beacon\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What is an Aeronautical Beacon? | Did You Know? | OneMonroe\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ever notice colored flashing lights at the top of a tower structure at an airport or landmark? 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