Dead Air
Thanks everyone for the responses. Don’t worry, the only aircraft I will ever be flying will be in this simulator. I simply enjoy learning and enjoying “flying” in MSFS and I keep wondering how close to real-life the many simulator functions are. I have spent a lot of time during well over a million miles riding as a passenger in aircraft and have always been curious about flight.
3 Likes
The First Officer is a expected to know where to go, that doesn’t sound like a multi-crew environment… Don’t spread misinformation, although the First Officer mostly handles communication on the ground, it is just as important for the commander to know where to go. Always if I’m not 100% sure about something I’ll ask to restate the clearance “for crew coordination”, I won’t rely on the other crew member to know where to go as there is no redundancy in place that way. Its the same if I am Pilot Monitoring, if I read back a clearance and the other pilot asks what the clearance was because he wasn’t paying attention, I’ll restate the clearance. Both pilots must receive and understand any clearance or instruction otherwise there is no cross-check if my information is right.
On the aircraft types I’m rated on the nosewheel steering tiller is only installed on the left, so I have to take over at some point during landing roll and taxi. Even though the FO is handeling the communication and writing down the taxi clearance, it is just as important for me to understand the taxi routing and know where we are going. That is how it works in a multi-crew environment. I used to type the taxi instructions into the FMS scratchpad so I have it right in front of me and the other pilot can crosscheck if it is correct. For example, I would write down: taxi via taxiway V, Y, F, hold short runway 30 as: V Y F /30
As said before, it all comes down to planning, on familiar airports you know what to expect. For unfamiliar airports it comes down to proper preflight procedures and planning. It is good airmanship to study airport charts before flying to such airports, for some airports (CAT-B and C airports) it is mandatory to do a self briefing or even sim training (not necessarily because of ground manoevering) so you normally go to those airports well prepared, but even for CAT-A airports it is common practice to study charts before such flight.
During departure and approach briefing it is common to brief the airport layout, expected taxi-route, active NOTAMs such as closed taxi ways, obstacles, work in progress, runway incursion hotspots. So you should have a pretty good idea what to expect normally. Then there are airports which are more complex than others, Schiphol or Stockholm Arlanda for example have predefined routes for departing and arriving flights so the taxi instructions are pretty short.
3 Likes
If you ever get the opportunity to get up there and sit in either front seat, take it, you can’t beat that sensation in your stomach turning inside from a small GA
Dead Air, do you really think the OP is going to understand the full operations of a multi crew cockpit environment? Not really interested in anybody’s flight credential’s I was trying to offer advice for a person who is genuinely interested in true flight operations.
Seems to me I read about a disastrous departure on a dark rainy night from a CLOSED runway that cost a lot of lives, simply due to confusion while taxiing.
2 Likes
I wish I could. Life is just not at a point that it would be possible. That’s the main reason the MSFS was so attractive to me. I even used to enjoy the cockpit cameras AA used to have so passengers could watch take off and landing.
Tell the OP how it is done in real life then 
.
1 Like
Just watched the prologue. I’ll save the rest for when I get home and crack a beer. Love this stuff. (The video… although I’m pretty fond of beer too.)
1 Like
If you ever get an opportunity to visit an air show there will be lots of pilots that would be only too willing to take you up, so don’t give up hope, also if you can join your local air club, that is a good way to learn flight operations , you don’t need to be a pilot of any kind, just be an enthusiast.
There is another good one but its more about runway safety (incursions) and not so much about taxiing. Its called runway incursions and the human factor or so, I’ll see if I can find it.
Edit: here it is:
1 Like
Oshkosh would be fun to visit. Perhaps some day.
1 Like
That’s a big Air show! Well I hope you get there one day! Enjoy your flight sim hobby, and most of all have fun
1 Like
Sometimes even when you got the instructions and read them back correctly you still make mistakes.
Oh yeah, writing down and proper readback of instructions is only part of the process. Maintaining positional and situational awareness, proper CRM, restating the clearance in case of any doubt, properly brief, proper thread and error management (low visibility, runway incursion hotspots etc.) identifying runways before entering, there is a lot important processes and procedures in place just to taxi to and from the runway…
I used to type the taxi instructions into the FMS scratchpad so I have it right in front of me and the other pilot can crosscheck if he/she has the same. For example, I would write down: taxi via taxiway V, Y, F, hold short runway 30 as: V Y F /30. Now I think about it, stopped doing that, but I used to set the ILS frequency for the take-off runway in low visibility to use localizer tracking and make sure being lined up on the correct runway…
1 Like
I must admit that I didn’t have to deal with the ridiculous European congestion. Most of my taxi instructions were fairly rudimentary…
6 Likes
The scenario’s where 20 planes are holding for departure etc. are more US situations, in most of Europe we use flow management via Eurocontrol, so they just won’t let you start up if delays are expected.
Most EU airports are also not as complex as major US airports. Most major airports have predefined taxi routes for departures and arrivals, so the taxi instructions consist of instructions where to leave the route and to which gate, very concise instructions.
Also the hideous system in the US where you have to talk to the gate to see if its free and ready for your arrival etc. doesn’t exist in the EU, it is all arranged via ground / apron controllers.
Get a subscription to Navigraph. Get a second monitor. Have the airport chart on the second monitor. Write down the taxi instructions and take your time following the route. Ever wondered why some planes receive taxi instruction and on the ATC Live it takes them a minute before they move sometimes. Pilot doing checklist and checking out taxi route. Least stress time of a flight. My home airport is KATL and I sit and watch with ATC traffic movements.
Normally we don’t stop, if it is busy checking in with ground and we don’t receive taxi instructions in time after vacating we need to stop, or maybe giving way to other traffic. Otherwise checklists are done during taxi, except in low visibility, no head down tasks and nonessential tasks are performed during low visibility operations. Expected taxi route should have been studied and briefed before so normally you don’t need time for that either. During High Intensity Runway Operations (HIRO), minimum runway occupancy time is expected so they won’t be happy if you are standing there checking out your charts and reading checklists while other aircraft can’t fully vacate… Make no mistake, ground maneuvering is often the most stressful and time compressed phase of the flight.
2 Likes