Today we had lunch at the Hummingbird Cafe at Shoreham Airport, a small airport used mostly by light aircraft. The decking we sat on is immediately (and I mean immediately) adjacent a taxiway and “parking” area, and a big part of the fun of lunching there is watching the 'planes do their thing. So…
One small aircraft fired up, and sat motionless but with the prop running for what felt like ten minutes. It them taxied for maybe 100 meters to a fueling point and shut down, got fueled, then fired up again. This time I put the watch on them: they were motionless for seven minutes before moving off for takeoff. I also timed a couple of other light aircraft, and they had similar “dead” time - a little shorter, but still four or five minutes. Simple question - what (safety?) procedures are happening between firing up and moving off?
Notes: the takeoffs and landings were infrequent while we were watching - three or four of each over maybe 45 or 50 minutes; waiting for a slot didn’t seem a likely explanation. Pilot training and “birthday treat” type flights do take place out of Shoreham.
Thanks for that. I assume it’s a similar list for most light aircraft types; and I gues that eacj of hte highlighted steps takes something of the order of 30 seconds.
I’ve avoided replying to this thread because I don’t know much about flight procedures that are particular to the UK. More on that in a minute…
But there are several possible reasons why a plane would start up and sit there for a while before going anywhere. Checklists are one reason, though it’s important to note that not everyone follows a checklist religiously, especially VFR pilots without a flight plan. Checklist usage for that kind of flying isn’t even mandatory, at least in the U.S., though if something bad happens it can be cited as a factor.
Some other possibilities… Shoreham appears to be a towered airport. The ground controller might have needed them to stay in their position before the route was clear to taxi for fuel. Another situation would be an IFR (instrument rules) flight, which would require receiving a clearance and then probably entering information into the plane’s GPS. Jets normally do this while the APU is running (a small engine that powers the avionics and environmental controls without the starting main engines), but prop planes may need to have the engine running because the battery might not be sufficient for the time to get a clearance and then start the engine. The information entered into the avionics might also be lost when starting the engine.
Another factor in an IFR situation could be a release time - meaning they might need to take off within a certain time window, which could require them to have the engine running some time in advance.
Back when I was an instructor I took a visiting UK pilot for a ride / lesson and he was telling me how difficult it was to train for the IFR rating in the UK. Supposedly, you had to arrange for practice approaches in advance, be there at the right time, and pay for each approach somehow, which got expensive. He was shocked when I said, “Oh, would you like to fly the ILS back to our airport?” I called ATC, asked for the approach which was immediately approved, and we did the procedure. He couldn’t believe how easy it was, and for FREE!!!
As you can probably guess, I know nothing about flying! Thanks for the post - my guess would be that procedures are pretty similar throughout developed countries - not from any knowledge of flying, but just because it seems to be the way for most technical things.
I am not a pilot and will never be a pilot, but I do watch a lot of youtube videos. There are a lot of videos from inside the cockpit, from everything from beginner pilots to very experienced pilots, and everything from tiny general aviation aircraft to massive airliners.
This is a pretty decent one. The pilot is explaining everything that he is doing. There is a lot going on. They aren’t just sitting there.
There is some standardization through ICAO, but each country gets to set their own rules. There are significant differences in VFR flying. Last I recall, there was no night VFR in Mexico, for example. I think that was a drug trafficking mitigation. We in the U.S. have great freedom in this respect, and I was frankly surprised we didn’t make it more restrictive after 9/11.
Many, many flight students come to train in the United States for a variety of reasons. Ease of procedures and training is a big one.
Well, that was a fascinating watch, thank you! Interestingly, the elapsed time from firing up to ready-to-go (with one edit where something was skipped) was about seven minutes.
