Well my definition of early is about 20 seconds. You know, when you call for a pushback, the pushback car starts moving towards the nosewheel. That’s when I switch my engine mode to IGN/START which I mapped to the beacon lights at the same time.
If the pushback car is already moving, shouldn’t that be a reason for the ground crew to start clearing the area? So I turn the beacon on to help with that too. Once the pushback car starts pushing back the aircraft, the beacon would already be on and the ground crew is cleared the area, and I can start the engines.
I’m also talking about the context in MSFS… not in real world scenario.