SMF Runway Heading Changes

[mcjones2013]

For those of you who listen to air traffic control frequencies:

Sacramento International Airport (SMF) runway heading numbers are changing as of May 21, 2020:

16R/34L (West Runway) will become 17R/35L
16L/34R (East Runway) will become 17L/35R

P.S. It doesn't appear that McClellan Airfield (MCC) runway headings are changing, despite them also being 16/34.

 

[wscranston]

They're truncated to two digits so MCC hasn't changed after truncation, while SMF has.

 

[Oakland_Tower]

This has to do with the changes in magnetic variation. Runways 16 at SMF are now aligned at 168 degrees and thus rounded up to runway 17. At MCC the runway 16 is at 163 degrees, and rounded down to 16. They both may have moved up 4 degrees, but starting from different points. A few years back OAK changed 29 to 30 and 27 to 28. Other airports stayed the same.

 

[Paysonscanner]

This has to do with the changes in magnetic variation. Runways 16 at SMF are now aligned at 168 degrees and thus rounded up to runway 17. At MCC the runway 16 is at 163 degrees, and rounded down to 16. They both may have moved up 4 degrees, but starting from different points. A few years back OAK changed 29 to 30 and 27 to 28. Other airports stayed the same.

Magnetic north is shifting and somewhere I have a website bookmark (actually it was my late Hubby, the civil engineer) that shows how declination is changing. Quite interesting. I never thought of airports having to change to keep up with it.

 

[SacScanner]

For those of you who listen to air traffic control frequencies:

Sacramento International Airport (SMF) runway heading numbers are changing as of May 21, 2020:

16R/34L (West Runway) will become 17R/35L
16L/34R (East Runway) will become 17L/35R

P.S. It doesn't appear that McClellan Airfield (MCC) runway headings are changing, despite them also being 16/34.

Thanks for the updated information. I do have a HP-1 but it is no good at receiving ground communications for aviation. LiveATC has one good site for hearing the controller, it’s Approach/Departure control for northeast Sacto. A feed site for SMF tower went down.