Aero-Tips!

A good pilot is always learning -- how many times have you heard this old standard throughout your flying career? There is no truer statement in all of flying (well, with the possible exception of "there are no old, bold pilots.") It's part of what makes aviation so exciting for all of us... just when you think you've seen it all, along comes a scenario you've never imagined.

Aero-News has called upon the expertise of Thomas P. Turner, master CFI and all-around-good-guy, to bring our readers -- and us -- daily tips to improve our skills as aviators, and as representatives of the flying community. Some of them, you may have heard before... but for each of us, there will also be something we might never have considered before, or something that didn't "stick" the way it should have the first time we memorized it for the practical test.

It is our unabashed goal that "Aero-Tips" will help our readers become better, safer pilots -- as well as introducing our ground-bound readers to the concepts and principles that keep those strange aluminum-and-composite contraptions in the air... and allow them to soar magnificently through it.

Look for our daily Aero-Tips segments, coming each day to you through the Aero-News Network. Suggestions for future Aero-Tips are always welcome, as are additions or discussion of each day's tips. Remember... when it comes to being good pilots, we're all in this together.

Aero-Tips 01.18.06

Recently there were two separate incidents, at widely separated airports, of on-runway aircraft collisions involving piston aircraft at non-towered airports. Although it may not have been a factor in either collision, it’s important that pilots properly transmit their location on the airport. One incorrectly reported item I see a lot at my local, fairly busy general aviation airport is the report of being “clear of the runway.”

Reporting clear

The FAA’s Pilot/Controller Glossary tells us precisely what’s meant the phrase “clear of the runway”:

• An aircraft exiting or crossing a runway is “clear of the runway” when all parts of the aircraft are beyond the runway edge and (at a tower-controlled field) there is no ATC restriction to its continued movement beyond the applicable holding position marking.
• A taxiing aircraft approaching a runway is “clear of the runway” when all parts of the aircraft are held short of the runway’s hold-short line.

It also warns us that pilots and controllers shall exercise good judgment to ensure that adequate separation exists between all aircraft on runways and taxiways at airports with inadequate runway edge lines or holding position markings.

Aero-tip of the day: Don’t radio that you’re “clear of the runway” unless you really are. We don’t need to trade any more paint (or worse) between airplanes.

FMI: Aero-Tips