A new marking appeared on the ramp at Fort Worth Meacham airport recently. It isa pink circle with a number inside, called a Geographic Position Indicator. They are used to indicate holding positions for aircraft taxiing during low visibility conditions.
There is a lot of taxiway and runway repair and repaving going on at Meacham. I am not sure if this was added to facilitate the holding of taxiing aircraft during the repair period or if it will be a permanent addition.
Last week I was asked to hold on the ramp while taxiing out for take off in order to allow other aircraft to taxi in. There was one section of taxiway that had to be used by aircraft going in opposite directions. The place I held is where the Geographic Position Indicator is now located, but it was not there at the time.
The poor controllers at Meacham are being kept pretty busy while the reconstruction is going on. Meacham has quite a few taxiways and runways and the work crews are moving around, requiring closing different taxiways periodically. A taxi clearance now can include 4 or 5 taxiways, and many pilots are caught by surprise by the complexity.
Yesterday, taxiways A-1, A-2, A-3, A-4, A-5, C-1, and J were all closed. In addition, Runway 9-27 is closed, Runway 16-34 has been redesignated Taxiway Z, and Taxiway A has been commissioned as Runway 15-33. VFR traffic is being directed to Runway 17-35 and IFR traffic is using Runway 15-33. The ILS is out of commission also, so only GPS approaches are available.
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