French Guiana · elevation 656 ft AMSL
· 3.6136, -53.2042
Saül Airport is an airport with the ICAO code SOOS and the IATA code XAU. Country: French Guiana. Nearest settlement listed in the database: Saül. OurAirports classifies it as a small airport. Its ICAO code starts with the SO prefix, which marks airports in French Guiana. The four-letter code SOOS is used in flight operations and weather reports, while the three-letter IATA code XAU is used for ticketing and baggage handling. The airport reference point sits at 3°36'49"N, 53°12'15"W, at an elevation of 656 ft (200 m) above sea level. The applicable time zone is America/Cayenne.
Aerial imagery showing the runway and apron layout - the zoom is matched to the longest runway.
| Threshold | Course | Length | Width | Surface |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 04 | 40° | 1,300 m (4,265 ft) | no data | unpaved |
| 22 | 220° |
The course is derived from the runway designator (number × 10), not from a survey - the actual magnetic bearing can differ by a few degrees.
Declared distances (TORA, TODA, ASDA, LDA) are published in the national AIP - they are not part of this table.
According to the infobox on the English Wikipedia, Saül Airport has one runway: 04/22 - 1,300 m long (4,265 ft), unpaved surface.
No OurAirports data is available for this airport, so the figures above come from Wikipedia - a community-edited source that can be out of date. The infobox also gives no runway width. Treat these numbers as indicative and check the current AIP before flying.
The thresholds are oriented as follows: 04/22 on 40° and 220° magnetic. A threshold designator is its magnetic heading divided by ten (ICAO Annex 14), so the runway axis can be read straight off the numbers.
For the 04/22 axis, wind from the south-east (around 130°) or from the north-west (around 310°) blows perpendicular to the runway and produces the largest crosswind component. Wind from around 40° or 220° acts along the runway, as a headwind or a tailwind. The decoder on this page computes those components automatically from the current METAR.
Weather reports for Saül Airport are published under the ICAO code SOOS. A METAR is an observation of current conditions, usually issued every 30 or 60 minutes; a TAF is a forecast for the airport area, typically covering 9 to 30 hours.
The decoder breaks the SOOS report down into its parts: wind direction and speed including gusts and variability, visibility (including CAVOK and directional minimum visibility), weather phenomena by WMO code, cloud layers with their bases, temperature and dew point, QNH pressure, and the resulting flight category - VFR, MVFR, IFR or LIFR - using FAA thresholds.
Not every airport issues its own reports; many smaller airfields have no weather station. If no current data is available for SOOS, check the nearby airports listed below.
Reports always use UTC (the Z suffix). The America/Cayenne zone stays at GMT-03:00 year-round, so converting to local time is always the same shift.
The closest airports in the database, measured in a straight line from the reference point, are Maripasoula Airport (SOOA, 93 km), Lawa Anapaike Airstrip (SMLA, 94 km), Tabiki Airstrip (Benzdorp) (SMTA, 98 km). When no report is available for SOOS, they usually give the best approximation of conditions in the area.
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Run a flying club, a training organisation or an airfield website? Embed a ready-made panel with the current SOOS METAR - flight category, wind, visibility, temperature and pressure, refreshed automatically. The configurator lets you pick language, theme and units; you paste the code once.
