Runway Lights

Runway lights are captivating. They make you think. Wonder, actually.

Ever since I was big enough to look out of a car’s window, I would stick to it whenever we would drive by the Lahore airport. Sometimes, I would tell my dad to slow down, so I could see the lights better. A decade later, when I got really into the Microsoft Flight Simulator, I set the defaults such that the game would always start on a runway at Chicago O’Hare at dusk so I got the right contrast for a long stretch of runway lights.

Even now in real life, I prefer flying at night, so I can get see them up close. I look forward to the few moments you get to look out of the window to see the lights line the length of the tarmac before the plane turns onto it to taxi. After that it is just dots of light swooshing past faster and faster until you begin to pay more attention to the noise from the jet engine, and then you are air borne, beyond the runway. The lights are short lived, but that’s interesting too.

What’s in these that has had such a gripping effect on me all this time?

I was always a flight enthusiast. I wanted to grow up to become either a pilot or an aerospace engineer, and that shaped my interests and choices for a very long time; however, these lights seem to be disconnected from those preferences. They seem closer to me as an idea than either of those two things. I think the attraction lies in their purpose and consistency.

Imagine being a plane lost above a foreign land, too far from home to turn back. Imagine the night getting deeper with the air over your wings getting colder. And then imagine suddenly seeing a set of runway lights. Expansive, clear, welcoming. You turn your flaps. You manovuer to align with them. You over shoot, but they stay. They wait for you to find your balance. You do. They stay, they come closer. They get longer and longer, the space between them increases to make space for you.

You touch the ground. Now you don’t care about them. You care about braking. You extend your flaps and droop your slats as much as you can to get the most drag. You deploy your air brakes. Your passengers hold clutch on tightly to their side rests. You slow down, you turn away to exit the tarmac. You see them again — the lights are still there. By being there, being steady, being bright, they tell you have landed well. Nicely done!

They stay there for the next you, and the next, and the next. They don’t care what your mission might be — to fly tourists, friends, family, aid, gifts, weapons, or soldiers. They only care about their’s — to guide, to be there, to give an opportunity to take off or retire.