Switching to ground....

It's important to remember that authorization from ATC does not relieve the
pilot of responsibility for safety. There is nothing wrong with stopping at
the hold short line and taking a look to make sure you are not about to
taxi into someone's takeoff or landing roll...

But once you have verified it is safe, you do not require additional
permission from Tower/Ground to continue...


Andrew Sarangan wrote in
. 158:

I am not clear why 'cross any intersecting runways' is a particuarly
safe thing to do. This may make sense at a familiar airport where you
know the taxiways and intersecting runway. At unfamiliar airports, I
get extremely nervous when crossing an intersecting hold short line.
There could be more than one way to get to the assigned runway, and you
may be following a different route than the one the controller had in
mind and inadvertantly cross an active runway. At unfamiliar airports I
stop and verify clearance to cross. I've had controllers get annoyed at
me for that, but better be safe than sorry. Given the increased rate of
runway incursions, this rule never made any sense to me.




"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in
ink.net:


"Dan Luke" wrote in message
...

Then I've committed an awful lot of runway incursions without
ever being told about it.


Well, you have if you crossed the assigned runway. If you merely
crossed other active runways that were not assigned to you then you're
okay.


§ 91.129 Operations in Class D airspace.

(i) Takeoff, landing, taxi clearance. No person may, at any airport
with an operating control tower, operate an aircraft on a runway or
taxiway, or take off or land an aircraft, unless an appropriate
clearance is received from ATC. A clearance to "taxi to" the takeoff
runway assigned to the aircraft is not a clearance to cross that
assigned takeoff runway, or to taxi on that runway at any point, but
is a clearance to cross other runways that intersect the taxi route to
that assigned takeoff runway. A clearance to "taxi to" any point other
than an assigned takeoff runway is clearance to cross all runways that
intersect the taxi route to that point.

In the US, a Hold Short instruction REQUIRES a confirmation readback from
the pilot. I have heard Tower Controllers rebuke pilots for failing to
properly read back a hold short instruction (ie, replying with "wilco").

If no hold short instruction is given, though, no hold short is required.

Tobias Schnell wrote in
:

On Sat, 10 Apr 2004 20:07:00 +0200, Stefan
wrote:

Steven P. McNicoll wrote:
I don't know how it is in the USA, but in this part of the world, a
taxi instruction does *not* imply the right to cross a runway.

I assume you are referring to Germany here as well. IMHO a taxi
clearance to a point beyond a runway implies a clearance to cross it.
If you have a reference for your theory, I'd be very interested in
that.

Often Ground controllers are
employees of the airport, Tower controllers are employees of ATC.
Ground "controllers" needn't even be controllers at all.

Sorry, but this is plainly wrong. At least in Germany "Ground"
controllers on the major airports are DFS-employees and "real"
controllers. You probably have "Apron"-controllers in mind, but they
don't do any movement control on taxiways, never mind taxiways which
have runway intersections.

Ground gives you instructions where to taxi and which taxiways ot use,
but this doesn't imply the right to enter a runway. If you must cross a
runway, you hold short of it, switch to Tower and ask for permission to
cross it. After crossing, you switch back to Ground.

Usually Ground will say something like "Taxi via x to holding point y,
hold short of runway z, contact Tower 123.45", but if they omit the
hold

short part, this doesn't imply anything.

I've never heard a controller omit the "hold short" part, and for good
reason.

Regards
Tobias

"Judah" wrote in message
...

The reg seems to support the statement that the "Taxi To" instruction
permits you to taxi across ALL other runways, even if they are active. It
only prohibits you from actually entering or crossing the one runway to
which you are assigned (ie: taxiing to)...


Yes, that's what I said.

While I wouldn't dispute that you are making a valid safety argument from
one perspective, I see several problems if you examine it from other
perspectives.

What you are describing is a situation analogous to driving an automobile
and stopping at every intersection, even though you have the green light.

A couple of problems that I see:

Following aircraft - Obviously, following aircraft should taxi in a manner
to avoid running over you, but in reality, expected behavior also enters
into that. If you were to just suddenly stop halfway down a long taxiway you
would be creating a similar hazard.

Traffic management - I would imagine that ground uses such techniques is
spacing and sequencing such that aircraft "A" can proceed, followed by
aircraft "B", with aircraft "C" crossing between aircraft "A" and "B".

So, it seems that this is another situation where, at first glance, an
action might appear to be increasing safety, when in fact it is reducing
safety...



"Judah" wrote in message
...
It's important to remember that authorization from ATC does not relieve
the
pilot of responsibility for safety. There is nothing wrong with stopping
at
the hold short line and taking a look to make sure you are not about to
taxi into someone's takeoff or landing roll...

But once you have verified it is safe, you do not require additional
permission from Tower/Ground to continue...


Andrew Sarangan wrote in
. 158:

I am not clear why 'cross any intersecting runways' is a particuarly
safe thing to do. This may make sense at a familiar airport where you
know the taxiways and intersecting runway. At unfamiliar airports, I
get extremely nervous when crossing an intersecting hold short line.
There could be more than one way to get to the assigned runway, and you
may be following a different route than the one the controller had in
mind and inadvertantly cross an active runway. At unfamiliar airports I
stop and verify clearance to cross. I've had controllers get annoyed at
me for that, but better be safe than sorry. Given the increased rate of
runway incursions, this rule never made any sense to me.




"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in
ink.net:


"Dan Luke" wrote in message
...

Then I've committed an awful lot of runway incursions without
ever being told about it.


Well, you have if you crossed the assigned runway. If you merely
crossed other active runways that were not assigned to you then you're
okay.


§ 91.129 Operations in Class D airspace.

(i) Takeoff, landing, taxi clearance. No person may, at any airport
with an operating control tower, operate an aircraft on a runway or
taxiway, or take off or land an aircraft, unless an appropriate
clearance is received from ATC. A clearance to "taxi to" the takeoff
runway assigned to the aircraft is not a clearance to cross that
assigned takeoff runway, or to taxi on that runway at any point, but
is a clearance to cross other runways that intersect the taxi route to
that assigned takeoff runway. A clearance to "taxi to" any point other
than an assigned takeoff runway is clearance to cross all runways that
intersect the taxi route to that point.

Right. My main point was (or was meant to be) that one you have exited of
your own volition and are stopped past the hold short line, I can't fathom
it being a safety issue whether you talk to tower or ground before moving
again. You may have been told to stay with tower for taxi before, but I'll
bet it wasn't during one of those periods when tower frequency is saturated.

Jeremy

"David Rind" wrote in message
...
Jeremy Lew wrote:
I have done the exit at Golf and switch thing several times (the last
being
only a few days ago). Clearly, you need to get off the runway if
there's
someone landing and the tower has forgotten about you. I might wait
somewhat
longer at an unfamiliar airport before switching (or use COM2, like
other
people have said), but we all know the drill at BED, I don't see it as a
safety issue at all, and have never had a controller bat an eyelash.

Jeremy

Jeremy --

The "get off the runawy" part is clear -- even without the tower
saying "turn left at Golf", you are supposed to turn off at the
first taxiway that is practical -- and I've often exited the
runway before they told me to. I've also had the experience
in the past where they had likely forgotten that they had
failed to switch me to ground, but usually the frequency
is clear and I can just tell the tower that I am on Golf
and want to taxi -- occasionally when I do this I get surprised
in that the tower really does want me to stay with them during
the taxi. What made this situation unusual was that they had
forgotten me and I couldn't get a word in....

David

--
David Rind

"Andrew Sarangan" wrote in message
. 158...

I am not clear why 'cross any intersecting runways' is a particuarly safe
thing to do.


What do you feel is unsafe about it?



This may make sense at a familiar airport where you know
the taxiways and intersecting runway. At unfamiliar airports, I get
extremely nervous when crossing an intersecting hold short line. There
could be more than one way to get to the assigned runway, and you
may be following a different route than the one the controller had in
mind and inadvertantly cross an active runway.


If there is more than one possible route and the controller has one
particular route in mind he should instruct you to taxi via that route.



At unfamiliar airports I stop and verify clearance to cross. I've
had controllers get annoyed at me for that, but better be safe than
sorry. Given the increased rate of runway incursions, this rule
never made any sense to me.


By all means, if you've reason to doubt the safety of crossing a particular
runway at a particular point and time then verify the instruction. But that
does not necessarily require halting your taxi. You should be able to talk
and taxi at the same time. You might respond that congestion on the ground
control frequency forces you to stop while waiting for a chance to get a
word in, but one of the things that contributes to frequency congestion is
pilots asking for verification of clear, properly issued instructions.

Judah wrote:
The reg seems to support the statement that the "Taxi To" instruction
permits you to taxi across ALL other runways, even if they are active.

It does. You can cross anything to get to your assigned runway. All
runways are always active, you have no way of knowing if a runway isn't
being used short of a notam.

Judah wrote:

It's important to remember that authorization from ATC does not relieve the
pilot of responsibility for safety. There is nothing wrong with stopping at
the hold short line and taking a look to make sure you are not about to
taxi into someone's takeoff or landing roll...

There's no need to stop. Do an S turn on the taxiway prior to the
runway if you need to but you shouldn't stop.

"Newps" wrote in message
news:Gsyec.115362$gA5.1473344@attbi_s03...

It does. You can cross anything to get to your assigned runway.


No, you can't. You cannot operate on the assigned runway at any point. If
it's required to cross the assigned runway at some point you must get
further clearance to cross the runway.

"Newps" wrote in message
news:Gsyec.115362$gA5.1473344@attbi_s03...


Judah wrote:
The reg seems to support the statement that the "Taxi To" instruction
permits you to taxi across ALL other runways, even if they are active.

It does. You can cross anything to get to your assigned runway.

At Paine field, most hangars and the two flight schools are on the east
side, and it is routine to get the instruction "Taxi to runway 34L at A4,
cross 11". I don't really know why they throw in that little redundancy;
perhaps there have been enough transient pilots in the past wasting a
transmission to get permission to cross 11/29.

We all look left and right crossing 11/29 anyway, of course.

All
runways are always active, you have no way of knowing if a runway isn't
being used short of a notam.

Or the ATIS.

-- David Brooks