Contrary to common practice, I hold (after much deliberation and consideration) that the best way to map runways is to make them an area.

One reason is that everybody and their dog, including our very own dearest wiki, defines a runway as being an area, with various elaboration. Example from our own wiki: [quote]A runway is a defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome (aeroway=aerodrome) prepared for the landing and take-off of aeroplanes. [/quote].

The eternal counter-argument is the parallelism to ways, railways, waterways and perhaps more; but I hold this argument to be non-valid. Unlike all the other categories, runways can NOT be joined to create routes. An aviator’s route planning mentions aerodromes and optionally other waypoints, navaids, visual reference points, but never runways. So that there is really no point in defining a runway as a way, or any other linear element.

I therefore strongly oppose both the mapping of runways as linear elements, and the additional use of area:runway or any such. The latter are totally redundant, and thus a waste of valuable resouces, storage capacity in the first place.

I am not the only mapper with this opinion, even less am I the first; many French ultralight terrains and their runways (“Base ULM”) have been mapped this way, and never been questioned. I find them perfectly satisfactory, too. For just one example among many, see [url] osm.org/way/587820283 [/url]

A А

B Б

C Ц

D Д

E E

F Ф

G Г

H Х

I И

J Й

K К

L Л

M М

N Н

O O

P П

Q

R Р

S С

T Т

U У

V Ж

W В

X Ь

Y Ы

Z

I think I am not the only one to find this matter confusing. The one clear and authoritative source of information is a pdf, in Russian language and Cyrillic alphabet only: http://www.caiga.ru/DocAni/manual_of_4_letter_indexes/Indexes_of_Airports.pdf ; it is regularly updated.

There are three columns of codes:

• local “civilian” code, usually beginning with ‘У’, which transcribes to U

• local code for “state” airfield, which includes military terrains, codes usually begin with a ‘Ь’ character, which transcribes to ‘X’

• “international” code, given in Latin alphabet, corresponds to ICAO

Aerodromes of mixed military/civilian use will have the first and second columns filled out; or, if they have international status, all three. UHSS Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk is an example.

Thanks to mapper Mazda05 for patiently explaining!

PS local_ref beginning with Z or H are not official, they seem to be empirically assigned by maps.aopa.ru (which I often consult, though its information is not always perfect). Better an unofficial ref than none at all, in my opinion.