Fingolfin’s Findings LXII: How can you tell that there are Tolkien fans at Hartsfield/Jackson Atlanta International Airport? Well, it’s all about STARs.

Now, this will all sound like a lot of technology gibberish to you but give me a minute or two and you will see that there are people inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien’s life and works and the adaptations based on them at US airports.

Like, literally. Exhibit #1 below.

And this is from the airport with the largest number of passengers in the world.

Parts of the area navigation plan for ATL (Opens in a new window).

What is a STAR?

The first abbreviation you will need to hear about is STAR.

Standard terminal arrival route. (Opens in a new window)

In aviation, a standard terminal arrival route (STAR) is a published flight procedure followed by aircraft on an instrument flight rules (IFR) flight plan just before reaching a destination airport.

To have this route work different parts of the flight path have to be clearly named and those names are given by the Federal Aviation Association (Opens in a new window) for the US. If you really want to know more about how this works let’s try this FAA pdf (Opens in a new window). And the arrival procedures are explained here (Opens in a new window).

An according to this forum entry (Opens in a new window)…

As was already stated they derive their name from the primary fix/navaid in their route. These fixes can be named for local geography (RIVRS arrival into STL), NAVAID (all of the ORD STARS), sports teams (SUNSS, COYOT, DBACK arrivals into PHX), air traffic controllers' names or family members (SWEED arrival into CVG - S. Weed), in honor of air traffic controllers that have died (DANEI arrival into DAY) or just local dominant subject matter (PONIE arrival into SDF - you know horses).

By far the greatest number - at least 80% - are named for air traffic controllers or airspace & procedures personnel and their family members.

So basically the people on the ground suggest names - the ‘service area office’ - that they think fitting. Fitting in the sense that they are easy to discern, sort of a thematic family, so to speak.

If you want to look all of these up have a look into this document (Opens in a new window). One of the links is for eNASR (Opens in a new window). Looking up this data will show you GNDLF (Opens in a new window) [pdf], for example.

Transitions to GNDLF and HOBTT are called BEORN, ENNTT, FRODO, GOLLM, ORRKK, SHYRE, and STRDR. Yes, five letter names. That’s the definition. Love NZGUL (Opens in a new window).

But this is not the only fandom-inspired naming happening in the States. IRNMN will not surprise any Marvel fan; JJEDI no Star Wars with transition points like SKWKR, EEWOK, or HOTHH.