Significant change to taxi procedures

[Don Desfosse]

Team, 

 

The FAA just issued FAA Notice 7110.528, effective 30 Jun 2010, that affects significantly the taxi procedures used when crossing runways. 

 

Summary of Changes:

 

1. The phraseology "Taxi to _____" will no longer be used. 

2. Aircraft are no longer automatically permitted to cross runways along their taxi route.  An explicit runway crossing clearance must be issued for each runway (active/inactive or closed) crossing and requires an aircraft/vehicle to have crossed the previous runway before another runway crossing clearance may be issued. 

 

 

An example using the new terminology: 

 

Note: In the following example, KBOS is using the 27/27 configuration, Local and Ground control are combined.

 

Old clearance to Runway 27 for departure, using the new taxi diagram, would sound like:

AAL123, taxi to runway 27 via Bravo, Charlie Delta.

 

 

New clearance to Runway 27 for departure, using the new taxi diagram, would sound like:

AAL123, Runway 27, taxi via Bravo, Charlie, Delta.

 

even though no hold short was issued for Runway 4L, AAL123 cannot cross 4L without a clearance.

 

as AAL123 approaches Runway 4L:

AAL123, cross Runway 4L.

 

as AAL123 approaches Runway 4R:

AAL123, cross Runway 4R.

 

as AAL123 approaches Runway 33L:

AAL123, cross Runway 33L.

 

 

Yes, so on a busy day (read event), can you see the issue with this....?  Methinks the lawyers won, ATC and the pilots lost.....

[Mike Willey]

That is pretty interesting, especially since we have trained a few pilots not to arbitrarilly stop at each runway now in the implied clearance..

 

Oh Well... :-

 

Mike

[Guest Jacob Bush]

Oh, Dear Lord save us all...

[Ross Carlson]

Does the point of transfer of control from ground to tower for outbound taxiing aircraft still occur at the first *active* runway? In other words, can ground issue the runway crossing instruction for *inactive* runways?

[Don Desfosse]

Yes, that remains unchanged.

[Guest Derek M]

Everyone sees a fight brewing over this one.  It will significantly increase the ground controller's workload.  Imagine taxiing out to 33L or 27...or taxiing out to 22R...or taxiing in from 4/9...  This won't be pretty.

 

DM

[Guest Paul Byrne]

Howdy,

 

Just thinking out loud here as this could be full of hassle when working CTR on your own. But would the following phraseology be acceptable:

 

"AAL123, Runway 27, taxi via Bravo, Charlie and Delta. Cross all runways"

or

"AAL123, Runway 27, taxi via Bravo, Charlie and Delta. Cross Runway 04L, 04R and 33L"

 

In other words, can you say it one go rather than have them actually stop at every runway on the way?

 

Cheers!

[Don Desfosse]

I think the problem there is with the proviso in the new 3-7-2© (effective 30 Jun 2010), which states:

 

c. Aircraft/vehicles must receive a runway crossing clearance for each runway that their taxi route crosses. An aircraft/vehicle must have crossed a previous runway before another runway crossing clearance may be issued.

NOTE

A runway crossing clearance is required to cross or operate on any active/inactive or closed runway.

 

 

The other thing I was hoping to capitalize on was

At airports where the taxi route between runway centerlines is less than 1,000 feet apart, multiple runway crossings may be issued after receiving approval by the Terminal Services Director of Operations.

but our parallels are 1500 feet apart.  The only place I see an opportunity to use that is for aircraft exiting 33L/15R onto either Quebec or Mike, Quebec, whereby Local could issue them,

 

"(Welcome to Boston), left turn onto Quebec, cross runway 4L, taxi to.... (or contact Ground on the other side)."

or

"(Welcome to Boston), right turn onto Quebec, cross runway 4L, taxi to.... (or contact Ground on the other side)."

or

"(Welcome to Boston), right turn onto Mike, right turn onto Quebec, cross runway 4L, taxi to.... (or contact Ground on the other side)."

 

 

To capitalize on the above at other towered airports, the proviso will need to be included in the airport SOP.  Anyone willing to look at the airport diagrams for our towered airports and give me a list of situations where we could capitalize on a runway crossing clearance where the taxi route between runway centerlines is less than 1,000 feet apart?

 

This blows.  I hope someone comes to their senses and fixes this before 30 Jun 2010....

[Ross Carlson]

In other words, can you say it one go rather than have them actually stop at every runway on the way?

 

If you take the 7110 change verbatim, that would not be allowed:

 

Aircraft/vehicles must receive a runway crossing clearance for each runway that their taxi route

crosses. An aircraft/vehicle must have crossed a previous runway before another runway crossing clearance

may be issued.

 

But I'm with Dan on this one ... this would get crazy on VATSIM for combined positions. Maybe we could have this new rule be in effect only if TWR and/or GND are online? In other words, APP and CTR can do it the way we always have?

[Tom Seeley]

I like Ross' idea. This is still VATSIM, and we adapt as necessary.

"Cross all runways" works for me, in spite of the new language.

[Guest Chris Armstrong]

In the spirit of remaining professional and keeping to our form of being real world, I would recommend we adopt the new terminology. However, being an actual real-world IFR-cert pilot, I have not heard of or read of this anywhere. I will check at my local airport this weekend to get more details.

 

Thanks for the heads up!

[Don Desfosse]

I spoke with some of the folks at AOPA.  I think they're starting to realize that they need to advertise this on behalf of the pilot community.  I complained that not enough advertising regarding who what when why how and how come was being done....  No commitment, but reply back from the person I was talking to is that they'll look into it......

[Don Desfosse]

Well, folks, it's here.

 

Remember that a specific hold short need not be issued for every runway along the taxi route.  So in the example above, using 27/27, no hold shorts are needed, but a specific crossing clearance will be.  In the case of the 33/27 configuration, the only specific hold short would have to be for 33L.

 

 

So here's an example for that:

Note: In the following example, KBOS is using the 33/27 configuration, Local and Ground control are combined.

 

Old clearance to Runway 27 for departure, using the new taxi diagram, would sound like:

AAL123, Runway 27, taxi via Bravo, Charlie Delta, hold short Runway 33L.

 

 

New clearance to Runway 27 for departure, using the new taxi diagram, would sound like:

AAL123, Runway 27, taxi via Bravo, Charlie Delta, hold short Runway 33L.  (see, this is actually the same.  But that's where the similarity ends....)

 

even though no hold short was issued for Runway 4L, AAL123 cannot cross 4L without a clearance.

 

as AAL123 approaches Runway 4L:

AAL123, cross Runway 4L.

 

as AAL123 approaches Runway 4R:

AAL123, cross Runway 4R.

 

as AAL123 approaches Runway 33L, since Ground and Local are combined, once it is safe to cross:

AAL123, cross Runway 33L.

 

Note that if Ground and Local were not combined, Ground would pass AAL123 off to Local as it approached 33L, same as before.

 

 

Now, all that said, due to the VATSIM top-down control methodology, there may be instances where a controller above (Approach or Center) is providing local and/or ground service at an airport.  These new procedures are to be followed to the best of the controller's ability, on a workload permitting basis.  Pilots should be patient (RW and VATSIM!) as these new procedures are deployed, and expect some delays as this new rule in some cases will significantly affect controllers' workloads.  A controller's primary responsibility is separation of aircraft in the air; in the event of combined positions, priority will always go to that function before crossing clearances.  Once we all come down the learning curve, it will get better and more efficient. 

[Guest Thomas Reid]

This is going to be interesting...It's strange hearing it on LiveATC now.

 

From listening though I have noticed that when using the 22s, controllers have consistently used the following:

COM463 runway 22R, taxi via K B N cross runway 15R

Then after the aircraft crosses 15R they give the clearance to cross 15L and then hand off to tower. Would we be able to do this as well?

 

-RD

 

EDIT: Ok there was just a controller change to Boston John, and he is using the real way...this is confusing.

[Ross Carlson]

Does this mean we are relying on pilots to know that they cannot cross a runway without an explicit instruction to do so?

[Don Desfosse]

From listening though I have noticed that when using the 22s, controllers have consistently used the following:

COM463 runway 22R, taxi via K B N cross runway 15R

Then after the aircraft crosses 15R they give the clearance to cross 15L and then hand off to tower. Would we be able to do this as well?

 

Yep, that's legal.

[Don Desfosse]

Does this mean we are relying on pilots to know that they cannot cross a runway without an explicit instruction to do so?

 

Well, that's a great question....

 

Technically, yes we are, though we all know that it's not been published very well (in my opinion) to pilots.  Neither FAR Part 91 nor the AIM have been revised to incorporate this change.  Not that everyday pilots read FAA Notices regarding JO 7110.65, but the FAA maintains that the change has been published via the earlier FAA Notice 7110.528, and the more recent FAA Notice 7110.532.  It has also been published on FAASafety.gov (including via email to everyone who is registered on www.faasafety.gov on 28 June), and has appeared in several of the aviation media (AOPA, AvWeb, etc.).

 

So I don't really expect all pilots (RW and VATSIM) to be up to speed on this.  Like lots of things, this will become an added part of our education mission -- we'll teach the new procedure to our pilots.

[Ross Carlson]

I may be missing a key piece of understanding here, but aren't we creating the potential for confusing our pilots due to the fact that we're only going to issue explicit crossing instructions for every runway on a workload-permitting basis? I mean, if we want to educate pilots that they are expected to hold short of every runway and wait for explicit crossing instructions, won't that cause problems during the times when we're (for example) working CTR and we're too busy to issue all the crossing instructions? Could we end up with a pilot sitting there at the hold short point for 4L on his way to 27, wondering why we're not giving him a crossing instruction? Obviously the pilot can just call up and say "permission to cross 4L?" but then we're not saving any workload.

 

It seems like this is something we either have to do all the time or not at all. Or am I missing something? (Maybe I'm just making a mountain out of a mole hill.)

[Don Desfosse]

CN, you're not missing anything.  I'm struggling with the best way to implement this, yet also realizing that oftentimes we have a lone CTR controller working everything in ZBW, sometimes with more traffic than one could be expected to handle all their traffic and ground crossings at our 31 towered fields....  I want to maintain realism as best as possible, yet the alternative, if the lone CTR controller (for example) is truly too busy to hold everyone's hand across every runway, is to treat most/all subordinate fields as uncontrolled.  I'd really like to avoid doing the uncontrolled thing.  I thought this approach, taking into account the comments/suggestions published here as well as on the VATSIM and VATUSA forums, was a reasonable compromise.  I should have stated that I'd like to try this approach out for a few weeks, then solicit input as to whether or not it's working, and determining if a course correction is warranted.  Fair?

 

 

 

I may be missing a key piece of understanding here, but aren't we creating the potential for confusing our pilots due to the fact that we're only going to issue explicit crossing instructions for every runway on a workload-permitting basis? I mean, if we want to educate pilots that they are expected to hold short of every runway and wait for explicit crossing instructions, won't that cause problems during the times when we're (for example) working CTR and we're too busy to issue all the crossing instructions? Could we end up with a pilot sitting there at the hold short point for 4L on his way to 27, wondering why we're not giving him a crossing instruction? Obviously the pilot can just call up and say "permission to cross 4L?" but then we're not saving any workload.

 

It seems like this is something we either have to do all the time or not at all. Or am I missing something? (Maybe I'm just making a mountain out of a mole hill.)

[Ross Carlson]

I was thinking of suggesting exactly what EE suggested in the other thread. Allow radar controllers, workload permitting, to issue all applicable runway crossing clearances as part of the initial taxi instruction. That way pilots get their explicit crossing instructions, and the radar controller doesn't have to keep track of where every taxiing aircraft is. Worst case scenario: "Delta 123, runway 27, taxi via Bravo Charlie Delta, cross runways 4L and 4R, hold short runway 33L."

[Guest Will Stewart]

This is a flat-out ridiculous change. I thought NATCA was gonna grow the pair to push back, but it looks like that might not happen.

[Don Desfosse]

I was thinking of suggesting exactly what EE suggested in the other thread. Allow radar controllers, workload permitting, to issue all applicable runway crossing clearances as part of the initial taxi instruction. That way pilots get their explicit crossing instructions, and the radar controller doesn't have to keep track of where every taxiing aircraft is. Worst case scenario: "Delta 123, runway 27, taxi via Bravo Charlie Delta, cross runways 4L and 4R, hold short runway 33L."

 

And this is precisely what we'll do, and we'll reassess after a few weeks.  Where positions are combined, workload permitting, we'll follow the new regulation (i.e. "Runway 22R, taxi via Bravo, November, Cross runway 15R.") 

 

If workload does not permit, multiple crossing clearances will be utilized (i.e. the example above, or "Runway 22R, taxi via Bravo, November, Cross runways 15R and 15L." or "Runway 22R, taxi via Bravo, November, cross all runways.")

[Matthew Miller]

How would this sound for a Helicopter doing an Air or Hover taxi?

Hover-

"Bell N121J, Hover-Taxi to Runway 27 via taxiway Mike." OLD

"Bell N121J, runway 27, hover taxi via taxiway Mike." - Would this be the new one?

 

Air-

"Bell N121J, Air Taxi via Foxtrot, Mike to Runway 27." OLD

"Bell N121J, Runway 27, Air taxi via Foxtrox, Mike." - Would this be the new one?

 

-thank you