Vasi Lights

Above the designated glide slope a pilot will observe more white lights than red.

Vasi lights. The visual approach slope indicator vasi is a system of lights on the side of an airport runway threshold that provides visual descent guidance information during approach. A three bar vasi works in similar fashion except there are only two glide paths with two reds being the lower two whites the higher. If rw according to this info for jfk the airport has depending on the runway both papi and vasi lights. If sim the author of your chosen scenery has not added them.

However depending upon the runway taxiway configuration the papi can be located on the right as shown in the picture above. So one red light would indicate slightly above glide slope two and two would indicate the normal glide slope and three red lights would indicate slightly below the glide slope on a 4 bar papi. We ll cover papi lights. Papi and vasi have the same function but do so in slightly different ways in which the lights are displayed.

This can be done using a tool such as airport design editor. At approaches below the ideal angle more red lights than white will be seen. These lights are visible from 3 5 miles during the day and up to 20 miles or more at night. In this video we ll go over the various types of approach lighting systems to determine your glide path height along the approach.

This week s video takes a closer look at 2 types vasi and papi to show you how they work and what the various indications mean. A precision approach path indicator papi uses lights similar to the vasi system except they are installed as four lights in a single row normally on the left side of the runway. All lights red too low. Vasi lights have three configurations.

Papi lights consist of a single row of four lights while vasi lights consist of a double row of three lights each. Comparison of papi vasi and ols meatball and datum lights not to scale the ratio of white to red lights seen is dependent on the angle of approach to the runway. These lights may be visible from up to 8 kilometres 5 0 mi during the day and up to 32 kilometres 20 mi or more at night. Visual approach slope indicators use a combination of white and red lights next to the runway to help pilots verify they are flying the correct approach angle to the runway.

According to the aim the visual approach slope indicator vasi is a system of lights arranged to provide visual descent guidance information during the approach to a runway.