I tracked the airplane down on foot... Turns out the building is an Electronics school! School was out when my friend and I went and the 'security gaurd' didn't even look twice as we walked in... So, to the elevator we went! The glassed in classrooms on the first floor had car mock-ups and an Imperial Trouper from Star Wars on display. To the 5th floor and up two more flights of stairs to find ourselves at a (locked ) glass door. But there it was!! With two tie-down ropes holding it in place, the plane actually looked smaller than it did in the satellite view. What a rush! Tried taking some pics through the glass with my PDA, but I'll have to go back and get some with a 'real' camera. Anything else in the Tokyo area you need tracked down? Jack
It's pretty clearly not a real runway. The artist who installed it numbered it "77" because that's the address of the building, but real runway numbers tell the pilot which way the runway faces using a standard two-digit convention.
An east/west runway would have a "09" at one end and a "27" at the other (for headings 090 and 270, respectively). Heading 000 is due north, and heading 180 is due south. A runway numbered "77" would point towards heading 770, which doesn't exist. A funny side note, though: if heading 770 did exist, it would likely be interpreted as (360 + 360 + 50); the same heading as a runway that would traditionally be numbered 05 or 23. This runway happens to be facing heading 050 -- perfectly aligned with the fictional heading 770!
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) glass door. But there it was!! With two tie-down ropes holding it in place, the plane actually looked smaller than it did in the satellite view. What a rush!