CAT I/II/III holding position sign

What the CAT I/II/III holding position sign is

The CAT I/II/III holding position sign is a runway-holding position sign for a runway served by a precision instrument approach. As a mandatory instruction sign it carries a white inscription on a red background, and it stands at the point where an aircraft must hold to keep the runway's instrument landing system protected.

Lower-visibility Category II and III operations need a larger protected area than a Category I approach, so the holding position that protects them sits further back from the runway. The category holding position sign marks that more distant hold, telling the crew both which holding position they are at and, by implication, which operations it protects.

ICAO and FAA names

Under ICAO Annex 14 Volume I this is a variant of the runway-holding position sign — the category holding position sign — and the same sign is carried through into the European rules under EASA CS-ADR-DSN. The FAA treats it as part of the same runway holding position sign family in its airport sign guidance and advisory circulars (AC 150/5340-18), rather than as a separately named sign. In everyday use crews simply call it the "CAT II hold" or "CAT III hold" for the runway in question.

Whichever standard you work to, the colours and the meaning are the same: a red sign here is a hold instruction, and this particular one is tied to the protection of a precision approach.

What it displays

The inscription is the runway designation followed by the category — for example 27-CAT II, or 27L-CAT II/III where a runway is protected for more than one category. The designation identifies the runway; the CAT I, CAT II, CAT III or combined CAT II/III suffix identifies which precision-approach protection the holding position provides. The board is red with a white inscription, oriented to the crew approaching the hold.

ICAO Annex 14 Volume I, EASA CS-ADR-DSN and the FAA advisory circulars each define how the inscription is composed and how the sign is sized and placed. The concepts are shared across all three — a runway designator, a category, a red field — even where the detailed dimensions differ between them, so this page states the rule and leaves the exact figures to the standard you are building to.

Draw it accurately in Wingframe

The runway designation, the category suffix, the character height and the red field of a CAT I/II/III holding position sign are all fixed by the standard you are working to. Wingframe draws the sign to ICAO, EASA or FAA geometry for you, so the artwork you hand to the sign manufacturer is right the first time. See what Wingframe can do.