⚠️ Reference data only, not for flight planning. Full notice →
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Technical Documentation

Methodology, Provenance & Verification Protocol

Compiled by

RunwayFacts is engineered to transform raw, noisy public domain aviation datasets into an auditable, normalized, and relationally linked aerodrome knowledge graph.

SOURCE SNAPSHOT
2026-09-01
LICENSE
Public Domain (CC0)
PIPELINE ARCHITECTURE
DuckDB + Strict Schemas

Reference & Statistical Notice

Data presented on RunwayFacts is compiled from public domain aviation registries for technical comparison and research. Not for flight planning or real-time operational aviation use.

1. Statistical Framework & Ranking Universes

To prevent ambiguity across rankings, RunwayFacts formalizes three explicit statistical ranking universes:

Universe A: RunwayFacts Published Dataset (n=650)

The curated collection of primary international commercial aerodromes meeting strict operational criteria (active paved runways ≥3,000 ft, validated IATA/ICAO codes, scheduled commercial status).

Used on: /records/ pages and primary directory.

Universe B: Global Commercial Universe (n=7,558)

The full statistical baseline of all 7,558 international facilities in OurAirports database that possess commercial runway records and IATA codes.

Used on: Global percentile distributions and worldwide standing.

Universe C: National Commercial Universe

Country-specific subset of all commercial aviation facilities within a sovereign territory (e.g. n=2,020 in United States, n=264 in China, n=164 in Australia).

Used on: Country Hubs (/country/[code]) and national standing.

Ties in runway-length ranks. In the 650-airport published index and in national standings, airports whose longest runways have the same recorded length share one rank, written "tied #N" (N = 1 + the number of airports with a strictly longer runway). Worldwide ranks (7,558 airports) are shown as the ordinal in the source data. For airports with equal runway length, the worldwide order does not indicate a length difference. Elevation and runway-count rankings are listed in order and are not tie-adjusted.

2. Data Provenance & Integrity Lineage

Raw data is ingested from the OurAirports Open Aviation Registry. Unlike traditional web aggregators, RunwayFacts enforces cryptographic locks and strict fail-closed database schemas:

3. Spatial Proximity & Haversine Distance Graph

For each aerodrome, RunwayFacts calculates great-circle geodesic distances to all other qualifying international aerodromes using the spherical Haversine formula (Earth mean radius R = 3,440.065 NM ≈ 6,371.009 km):

d = 2R · arcsin(√(sin²(Δφ/2) + cos(φ₁) · cos(φ₂) · sin²(Δλ/2)))

Nearby Aerodrome Constraint: Only neighbouring aerodromes within a 100 NM radius possessing at least one active, paved runway measuring ≥5,000 ft are indexed in the proximity comparison table.

4. Machine-Readable & LLM Agent Access

RunwayFacts is designed as an open aerodrome knowledge graph. In addition to clean HTML views, an agent manifest describes the site structure for automated readers: