Narrative:

The flight was scheduled to depart cherry point MCAS early in the morning. The first officer's and I had dead headed into a nearby civilian field to begin the trip. None of us had ever been to cherry point before; nor had we flown together previously. I downloaded the charter packet from the company website and studied the airport pages several days before the trip began. Looking at the airport diagram; the airfield consists of four runways radiating outward from a central taxi area at right angles. When we arrived at the aircraft; it was parked on a taxiway on the west side of the airfield. My interpretation of the airfield diagram was that the four runways radiate outward from a large central area of pavement and that the runways all began there. As we determined later; that was not the case. We started engines and ground control cleared us to taxi using 14L to get to the central pavement area. We completed all of our checklists as I taxied the aircraft toward the center of the airfield. As we reached that central area; the tower controller cleared us for takeoff on runway 23L; which was in a direction to our right. It was dark and there was no signage on this central pavement area. I could see runway edge lights to my right for 23L and could not really see anything to my left to indicate that there was additional runway in that direction. When we turned onto the runway I checked the headings and made a quick last check before setting takeoff power. As we were rolling down the runway I began to think that there was not a lot of runway left if we had needed to stop. I rotated with a little over two thousand feet remaining. After we got up to cruise; the first officer and I talked about the takeoff. We determined in hindsight that there was runway behind us when we began our takeoff roll and that we should have talked to the tower controller about back taxiing before beginning our takeoff. At the time; I didn't even realize it was necessary or an option. Upon closer inspection of the airport diagram; the runways are indicated in black; but there is additional pavement in the center in light gray and if you drive onto runway 23L from 14L there is active runway pavement to your left. Since it was dark and I was unfamiliar with the airport; I never realized it.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: B767-300 Captain reports departing NKT at night and not using the entire available length of Runway 23L for takeoff due to the unique arrangement of the runways and lack of familiarity. About 600 FT of an available 8;200 FT runway was not used.

Narrative: The flight was scheduled to depart Cherry Point MCAS early in the morning. The First Officer's and I had dead headed into a nearby civilian field to begin the trip. None of us had ever been to Cherry Point before; nor had we flown together previously. I downloaded the charter packet from the company website and studied the airport pages several days before the trip began. Looking at the airport diagram; the airfield consists of four runways radiating outward from a central taxi area at right angles. When we arrived at the aircraft; it was parked on a taxiway on the west side of the airfield. My interpretation of the airfield diagram was that the four runways radiate outward from a large central area of pavement and that the runways all began there. As we determined later; that was not the case. We started engines and Ground Control cleared us to taxi using 14L to get to the central pavement area. We completed all of our checklists as I taxied the aircraft toward the center of the airfield. As we reached that central area; the Tower Controller cleared us for takeoff on Runway 23L; which was in a direction to our right. It was dark and there was no signage on this central pavement area. I could see runway edge lights to my right for 23L and could not really see anything to my left to indicate that there was additional runway in that direction. When we turned onto the runway I checked the headings and made a quick last check before setting takeoff power. As we were rolling down the runway I began to think that there was not a lot of runway left if we had needed to stop. I rotated with a little over two thousand feet remaining. After we got up to cruise; the First Officer and I talked about the takeoff. We determined in hindsight that there was runway behind us when we began our takeoff roll and that we should have talked to the Tower Controller about back taxiing before beginning our takeoff. At the time; I didn't even realize it was necessary or an option. Upon closer inspection of the airport diagram; the runways are indicated in black; but there is additional pavement in the center in light gray and if you drive onto Runway 23L from 14L there is active runway pavement to your left. Since it was dark and I was unfamiliar with the airport; I never realized it.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.