CASA sign standards (Part 139 MOS)

In Australia, airfield signs are set by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority through the Part 139 Manual of Standards — an ICAO Annex 14 aligned standard for certified aerodromes.

The Australian standard

In Australia, airfield signs are regulated by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA). The binding rules sit in the Part 139 (Aerodromes) Manual of Standards (MOS) — this page draws on the 2019 MOS — made under the Civil Aviation Safety Regulations, supported by CASA's Part 139 advisory circulars. This page describes the standard at a scope-and-structure level; specific dimensions are given on-page only where they can be verified against the source.

The Part 139 MOS is built on ICAO Annex 14: Australia is an ICAO member state and the MOS carries the Annex 14 aerodrome-design provisions — including the sign standards — into Australian law, with local notes of difference where CASA departs from ICAO.

The two families under Part 139

CASA keeps the ICAO sign taxonomy:

Mandatory instruction signs — a white inscription on a red background, covering the runway holding position and no-entry signs that tell a pilot to stop and hold.
Information signs — black on yellow for direction and destination signs, inverting to yellow on black for location signs.

Because the MOS follows Annex 14, the colours, inscriptions and family structure match the ICAO baseline; the character heights and face proportions are keyed to the aerodrome reference code in the same way. The Part 139 MOS remains the authority for the exact Australian values — it keeps its own dimension tables (for example the sign face-height table) — and for any local differences.

How Part 139 fits the wider picture

CASA's Part 139 MOS plays the same role for Australia that CAP 168 does for the UK and TP 312 does for Canada — a national aerodrome standard anchored to Annex 14. The regulations overview compares the authorities side by side.

Draw from the ICAO baseline in Wingframe

Wingframe draws airfield guidance signs to ICAO Annex 14 — and EASA and FAA — geometry: the reserved-red rule, the family colours and the legend proportions that the Part 139 MOS builds on. It does not ship a CASA-specific configuration, so treat it as a correct Annex 14 starting point rather than a Part 139 compliance check — the exact Australian dimensions come from the MOS itself. See what Wingframe does.