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How far can you move before needing a taxi clearance for the movement?

At a controlled airport, look for the maneuvering area boundary line.
It is made up of two yellow lines: One dashed line, one solid line.

As per my photo on Page 1

Image here:

Obviously unless there’s something unusual, most airports would put the fuel pumps outside the maneuvering area with enough space to get to and from the relevant parking areas and for pulling aircraft aside after refueling or Ground will very quickly be overwhelmed.

Edited to add: Double white lines may also be used in some places.

Last Edited by James_Chan at 22 Sep 16:27

At a controlled airport, look for the maneuvering area boundary line.
It is made up of two yellow lines: One dashed line, one solid line.

This separates the ramp/hangarage/maintenance area (solid side) with the taxiway (dashed side).

If you don’t need to enter the taxiway then you don’t need to call Ground.

Last Edited by James_Chan at 22 Sep 12:27

What is the point of talking to ground control. So they can control whatever they want to control. The focus will be getting a/c to the runway for take-off, and getting aircraft away from the runway environment after landing via the taxiways to the apron of their choice.

At a GA airport, at a GA apron, I wouldn’t bother when I do apron movements. (e.g. swapping parking spots, a/c out of hangar, taxi to bowser) However if I had to enter a taxiway, you might wanna talk to someone about it.

Check the local rules see if they mention anything about it. If not I would use common sense. Or call the aerodrome traffic officer.

It seems I’m pretty fortunate that the pilots at my local club are mainly considerate because they tend to move their aircraft by hand away from the pumps without prompting.

With regard chartering, our club has a rule which says if you want the plane for a whole day during a weekday, you have to pay for a minimum of 1 hour per day, 1.5 hours at the weekend – so if you want the plane for an extended weekend – Friday to Monday – you can have it but only if you agree to fly (or pay) for at least 5 hours flying (2 × 1 hour plus 2 × 1.5 hours). Charges are raised wet per minute with only actual flight time calculated, not hobbs or block time.

Works well for me…….

EDL*, Germany

There are “non movement areas” at UK (well at least UK-like) ATC airports, for example area mike at Ronaldsway is not controlled by ATC (there’s the double yellow bars at the exit to area M with a reminder “ATC clearance required beyond this point”).

Andreas IOM

The fuel station, the apron and the taxiway connecting the two are outside the “maneuvering area” and so uncontrolled.

The first time I came across this, in Germany, I was quite confused that ATC refused to give me a clearance… In the UK it seems to be either ATC control everywhere, or no ATC control at all – no middle ground.

EGEO

At my home airport this is luckily not an issue. The fuel station, the apron and the taxiway connecting the two are outside the “maneuvering area” and so uncontrolled. Listening on TWR frq is advisable, though, as TWR sometimes comes up with “solutions” to what could be a locked-up nose-to-nose situation.

Sometimes it is good to be reminded of problems one does not have.

huv
EKRK, Denmark

Not required to pull by hand. Just get in and move out of the way within, say, one minute.
Every half competent pilot should be able to start up his aircraft within one minute after getting in and start moving immediately. This merely requires pilots to know the vital points (towbar removed, etc.) and skip the less important ones from the checklist. One can then do it all over again slowly once out of the way.

Mainz (EDFZ) & Egelsbach (EDFE), Germany

Here in the UK, there is a dire shortage of quality aircraft on the self fly hire scene.

It is gradually improving, and there are some exceptions where there is a good choice.

But IMHO the biggest factor in people giving up is the “lack of fun”. Nowadays anybody with the money to get a PPL has plenty of other options on having “fun” so they have to evaluate the competing options. And it’s difficult to have fun in GA when the hardware is such crap that prospective passengers (especially female ones ) turn up their nose when they see it. With the passage of time, what you are left with is a flying community consisting mainly of retired men in their 60s and above, and they are not going to be renting 2hr blocks per day and doing a long trip because they don’t actually have all that much money. Also some of the “old” guys (I am 57 BTW, yet where I am based I am just a kid) have done enough touring in the past and now just want to do short local lunch runs, so again the market isn’t there to support a quality-aircraft self fly hire option.

Anyway, this is digressing

Pulling the aircraft along say 10m cannot IMHO cause a problem, but it isn’t easy to pull a filled-up SEP (I can only just about pull the TB20 on a very flat surface).

Last Edited by Peter at 17 Aug 15:53
Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
38 Posts
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