Colour added sparingly but well to airfield diagrams

Pooleys Flight Guide 2006

IF you’ve put off buying a new airfield guide, don’t leave it any longer. For one thing both of the main publishers, Pooleys and AFE, have just launched their latest 2006 guides, and for another, Pooleys has just added colour.

Colour? Shouldn’t really be a big thing in the 21st century but it’s no small move for a 732-page directory. Pooleys has used colour sparingly but well, adding in green for grass strips, blue for water such as rivers, and various colours for special features. It’s on the regional maps that the colour really helps, picking out the airspace, VRPs, towns and things like parachute and glider sites. The Brize Norton CTR is a prime example, showing clearly this busy chunk of Oxfordshire. It’s even got Uffington’s hillside White Horse (in black, perversely). Looking through this latest Pooleys made me realise just how much useful info it contains.

The airfield diagrams are well known, of course, showing not only the runway layout but also where everything is on the airfield and large local features which might help identify the airfield from the air. It also has the noise abatement procedures for many airfields. Turweston, for example, where the approach and departure is cranked to avoid overflying local villages. Another good example is White Waltham, which has two pages devoted to the various circuits for its six runways.

Key VFR routes such as the Manchester Low-Level and the Entry/Exit lanes for Manchester and Liverpool are very clear. I’ve never actually used the Luton Special VFR route over the top of the airport but if I wanted to, I’d know where to go thanks to the useful diagram.