Okay, why the 'K'

[rvator51]

Originally Posted by Bill Dicus

All US airports I've encountered with an alpha ident begin with K and Garmin's literature says this is so. If the airport's identifier begains with a letter, the K should be added to the beginning of the ident. All airports (private or public) whose identifier begins with a number do not require or have the K. I don't know where this is spelled out in the regs but it's consistent with everything I've found in Loran and GPS databases and at all airports where we've landed or visited. Hope this helps. Bill

I think this is mostly true, but there are exceptions such as K81 - Miami County Airport, Paola, KS where I stopped for fuel on the way back from Oshkosh.

[Mel]

Airports with a "3 letter" identifier get the "K" to separate them from VORs that have the same identifier. Most GPSs require the "K". Some don't.

[Brambo]

Now for the BIG question: Why is the US = "K"? Canada is "C", Mexico is "M"
and Europe is "E". So why K for the US?

Bill Rambo

[lucaberta]

Originally Posted by Brambo

Now for the BIG question: Why is the US = "K"? Canada is "C", Mexico is "M"
and Europe is "E". So why K for the US?

nope. Europe is not E, that is Northern Europe. We Southern Europeans have L as the area prefix.

In most countries the first letter is the area, and the second is the country. My country, Italy, is LI, L for South Europe, I for Italy. Belgium is E for North Europe, and B for Belgium.

The last two letters are completely left to the discretion of the country.

Canada and the US, being so huge and having so many airports, have a single letter with the final three ones to be used to identify airports and/or weather stations.

Mexico is MM, Cuba is MU...

Ciao, Luca

[nucleus]

Originally Posted by Bill Dicus

All US airports I've encountered with an alpha ident begin with K and Garmin's literature says this is so. If the airport's identifier begains with a letter, the K should be added to the beginning of the ident. All airports (private or public) whose identifier begins with a number do not require or have the K. I don't know where this is spelled out in the regs but it's consistent with everything I've found in Loran and GPS databases and at all airports where we've landed or visited. Hope this helps. Bill

Not true! I fly out of 9S5, no K involved, on my garmin, apollo or otherwise.

Hans

[Mel]

Originally Posted by nucleus

Not true! I fly out of 9S5, no K involved, on my garmin, apollo or otherwise.

Hans

9S5 does not begin with a letter. Only airports with 3 letter identifiers get the "K"

[gmcjetpilot]

Originally Posted by Brambo

Now for the BIG question: Why is the US = "K"? Canada is "C", Mexico is "M"
and Europe is "E". So why K for the US?

Bill Rambo

IATA (eye at uh) is what airlines use and are three letter; ICAO (eye kay oh) 4 letter ID's are for weather stations, air control centers. "K" was assigned and don't know for sure why K. A - America or U - USA may have caused some confusion? Australia is Y. Some one said K is the 13th letter for the 13 original colonies, but unfortunately my fingers and toes say it letter 14. (edit oops thanks Tobin Basford (below), I have extra toes, 11, any way 13 does not work either) M for Mexico, so M was not available? Probably arbitrary.

Note, Hawaii and Alaska start with P for Pacific. International ICAO airport ID trivia below.

ICAO and IATA ID's are totally different some times. For example Naples Italy is NAP in IATA, however in ICAO its LIRN and it makes more sense, at least if you fly international flights. L - Lower Europe, I - Italy, R - Rome ATC, N - Naples. You can probably now guess Paris ICAO ID: L - low euro, F - france, P - paris atc, G - Gaulle (Charles de Gaulle Airport), LFPG is De Gaulle France, ICAO is (CDG).

ONE MORE! IATA (LHR) ? London Heathrow Airport ? London, England. E - upper europe, G - great britian, L - london control, L - london, so ICAO - EGLL. You can figure out the big airports, but when there are several in one city or don't know the ATC regions it gets a tricky.

Adding K to our 3-letter US ID's to get ICAO is not so bad. We do not follow the 4-letter convention. Hope we never change, but their system works when you fly international and makes sense.

Now why "N" numbers on US planes. There are some theories but its a mystery. Here is a great article on the history of N-numbers:
http://www.aahs-online.org/articles/N-number.htm

Here are the worlds first letter ID.

[Tandem46]

Some one said K is the 13th letter for the 13 original colonies, but unfortunately my fingers and toes say it letter 14. M for Mexico, so M was not available?

Uh??? What alphabet are you using George??

a b c d e f g h i j k
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

[Ironflight]

Originally Posted by tobinbasford

Uh??? What alphabet are you using George??

Maybe it's not his alphabet Tobin - maybe we don't know how many fingers and toes he has...could George be an alien?!?

[jmartinez443]

Originally Posted by McFly

This is not exactly GPS specific but since it causes me grief on my Lowrance 1000, I am posting here.

Why do some airport identifiers need a 'K' prefix when searching for an airport by identifier? For example, my home airport identifier is 'CIC' on the Sacremento sectional and facility guide but if I search my GPS for 'CIC', it will not find it. You must enter 'KCIC'. This can and has doubled my heads down time.

I initially thought it might be related to size of the airport or VOR on the field but that does not seem to be the case.

Lowrance if you are listening, a useful feature would be to add a prompt along the lines of "Did you mean KCIC?" when "CIC" is entered.

I think you are confusing CIC (the colocated VOR) with KCIC (the airport on which the VOR is located) on your sectional. Chico IS KCIC regardless.