When I was a student pilot training in a Cessna 152 at what was then a nontowered airport in Nashua, New Hampshire, my instructor had me taxi around in a tight circle before taking the runway to scan the traffic pattern one last time—space permitting—in the runup area.
Later, as an instructor working out of a tower-controlled former U.S. Air Force base in Class C airspace, I had my students taxi well to the rear of the spacious runup area at the threshold of the two-mile-long runway and turn into the wind for the pretakeoff duties. With beginners eager to get in the air, it was often necessary to have them taxi much farther back in the runup area than they expected, but that issue evaporated once they realized they were sharing the airport with regional airliners, bizjets, KC–135 tankers of our local Air National Guard unit, and sometimes a gigantic visiting military C–5A. When one of the behemoths swung onto the runway from Taxiway Alpha, it was a good idea for us, in our 1,560-pound trainer, to squeeze the brakes and nudge the yoke forward a bit as an added precaution
An aircraft doesn’t have to be bigger than yours, or overburdened with powerful engines, to be something to avoid. But you can’t avoid a hazard you don’t understand. A pilot with the best intentions can inadvertently position an aircraft in a vulnerable position by not knowing another aircraft type’s power output and design limitations, or what might be commanding that aircraft’s pilot’s attention.
Take taildraggers. With some, the sight picture ahead is nothing but engine cowling with perhaps a glimpse of sky. You can recognize such airplanes by the way they taxi in a lumbering series of S-turns; they do that to give the pilot a view of what’s directly ahead with alternate visual checks over either side of the nose. It’s wise to give such aircraft a wide berth.
One tailwheel aircraft with limited forward visibility is the two-place Great Lakes 2T–1A, an aerobatic biplane and trainer. On June 3, 2018, a flight of three Great Lakes was taxiing forward for takeoff after another airplane had departed at Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport in San Diego, California. A Cessna 172 with an instructor and student pilot aboard was at the hold line, waiting for the biplanes to depart.
As the biplanes moved forward, the second airplane in the tailwheel flight of three hit the Cessna, damaging its right aileron. The National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation included interviews with the parties, noting that the 4,471-hour pilot of the second biplane “began to follow the lead airplane, and his airplane struck the airplane stopped at the hold-short line. He reported that he never saw the stopped airplane until after the impact.”
It’s not hard to imagine a pilot in a flight of three visibility-limited airplanes, all taxiing into position simultaneously for a formation operation, being highly focused on the leader.
The report said the 1,000-hour pilot of the stationary airplane did not have the complete picture of what was going on in the departure line, nor did he know the constraints the other airplanes’ pilots faced. The CFI “reported that he was not aware that the three biplanes were part of a single flight awaiting takeoff clearance. He also reported that he had never flown tailwheel airplanes and was not aware of their limited forward visibility.”
The NTSB concluded that the probable cause of the accident came down to the biplane pilot’s “failure to see and avoid” the stopped Cessna, the NTSB said.
The report gives us a good reason to become more knowledgeable about the many aircraft out there that are different from our own.
Related Articles
