In relation to this thread I wonder who else has this problem.
I have been “lost” at just about every big airport I have been to, and plenty of smaller ones.
Obviously one is supposed to ask ATC when lost, but – as with flying itself when navigating “traditionally” – often one doesn’t realise one is lost.
The signage at airports tends to be rubbish. No way would one get away with that on roads, where each road is marked at the intersection(s), for completely obvious reasons. At many airports, there are taxiways which are not marked at the intersection from which you reach the taxiway, so the only way you “know” where you are is by continually following the airport map and mentally ticking off the marked points or taxiways which you passed.
It’s also no wonder there is a huge number of runway incursions. The only way to guard against that is to check, at each marked runway entry point, the runway number, and check it is the runway number you were cleared to taxi across. The mistake is more easily made when you have two runways with similar numbers.
The signage isn’t rubbish. It’s just designed to be seen from the cockpit of an airliner, meaning much higher than in your average spamcan. Just have the taxi diagram out. No big deal, really.
ATC.: “Taxi via N to F, hold short of K, to Apron X3”
Me: “Request progressive taxi”
That solves it, I never taxi on my own on airports I’m not familiar with. And I stop at every turn and ask for explicit confirmation where to turn. The last time I received such complex instructions was at Heraklion (LGIR) where all taxiway signs were covered in 1m high grass, if they weren’t broken or missing. 90% of the traffic at airports that have a complex taxiway setup is scheduled traffic where the crew knows its way so ATC can take the time to help me find the right way. I do not want to risk a runway incursion or the like just out of politeness and trying to save them the effort to direct me.
Just have the taxi diagram out.
I am talking about having the airport diagram. Nobody would taxi around without an airport diagram.
Request progressive taxi
That sounds like a good idea.
Quite a relief to hear I’m not the only one – I hate taxiing at large, unfamiliar airports.
Even with plenty of taxi layout pre-briefing AND Safetaxi or Jeppesen ChartView on the G1000, I still manage to lose positiional awareness once in a while & generally ask ground to confirm my whereabouts at any given time whenever I’m not 100% clear on where I am.
I flew into KLAX once in a C172 – I must have spent 2-3 hrs prebriefing myself on the taxi layout & specific taxi route clearances. The whole thing actually went ok – but it was a struggle orienting yourself during some of the complex intersections; the taxiways are > 100 feet wide and it’s real hard to orient yourself purely by the signs.
We once had a student on his solo cross country and the guy operating GND had such a bad dialekt, he simply didn’t understand him – he parked at the intersection where he vacated the runway and demanded progressive taxi from someone he could actually understand. Took them 5 Minutes to get another controller on the line. Works that way :-)
I always try to anticipate the route they will give me, works on not so busy medium airports, but I have been lost more than once.
One time I nearly lost it on Sylt. I just finished my checks and reported ready for departure, but TWR insisted of me being at the wrong runway. Went back and forth for two minutes, until an other pilot told TWR that he apparently confused us two. Can be quite intimidating.
During Flight Instructor training, one of our Instructors told me he once accidently took off from the taxiway of a bigger airport. He was used to runways smaller than the taxiways of the airport. Since he didn’t disturb or endanger anyone, the ATCO didn’t file anything.
Getting lost on airports is a very real problem and not just for light aircraft, the airline I fly for is currently replacing the EFB with one that will automatically select the Jepp airfield chart as the aircraft ground speed falls below 40kts and feed the aircraft GPS data to the EFB to produce a moving map position on the displayed airfield chart.
This sort of investment over a big fleet shows just how seriously the airline takes this issue.
As said above most airfield signs are intended to be veiwed from airliner flight deck height so are sometimes a bit hard to see at a distance, this requires a lot more planning than when taxing a 737 as the 737 driver gets to see the sign a lot sooner than a light aircraft pilot, when you get down to CAT3 conditions the 737 crew will both be paying a lot of attention to the taxi route and taxing at C152 speeds as they are now in the same position as the light aircraft pilot with reduced reaction time as the signs become visible.
The technology of an airfield moving map such as Jeppview gives on the iPad is a tool that you don’t want to be without.
It must be remembered that one of the worst air disasters was essentially a taxing and CRM accident………. We ignore this phase of flight at our peril.
For those who want to roll their own: xplane has pretty nice vector data for many larger airports, as does OpenStreetMap OSM lacks taxiway identifiers, though, so you still need some other chart to give you those
Sorry, tomjnx, that is too general. At least for EBBR the taxiway indicators ARE given on OSM. EBAW and EBCI very complete, too. EBOS and EBLG indeed missing, though.
I was at Schipol a few times recently during low vis and the problem is the signs and yellow lines are hard particularly in the large open areas. You are too low to really get perspective on which of the three line going left is the right one. Garmin safetaxi is really helpful in that scenario.
