Aerodrome beacon

An aerodrome beacon, airport beacon, rotating beacon or aeronautical beacon is a beacon installed at an airport or aerodrome to indicate its location to aircraft pilots at night.

Not to be confused with Airway beacon.
This article is about identifying airports to overhead aircraft. For sending information to travellers' phones, see Bluetooth low energy beacon.

An aerodrome beacon is mounted on top of a towering structure, often a control tower, above other buildings of the airport. It produces flashes similar to that of a lighthouse.

Airport and heliport beacons are designed in such a way to make them most effective from one to ten degrees above the horizon; however, they can be seen well above and below this peak spread. The beacon may be an omnidirectional flashing xenon strobe, or it may be an aerobeacon rotating at a constant speed which produces the visual effect of flashes at regular intervals. Flashes may be of one, two, or three alternating colors (described below).

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