It still strikes me as weird to unnecessarily block the runway, but they seem to want it like that.
It is kind of weird. The runway is for take offs and landings. All other things can be done elsewhere. At AFIS airports you only get the message “runway free”. It’s been ages since I landed at an AFIS airport, but I think I did engine runup at the runway there as well, thinking when it’s free it’s free. I don’t think I would do that today, you have a much better view of the runway in both directions from the holding position, just in case some pre-occupied pilot didn’t get that the “runway free” was for me.
BTW I failed my JAA IR 170A “pre-test test” (a UK FTO moneymaking scam, mostly) partly because I had not turned into wind for the power checks.
What’s the rationale for doing it that way?
At AFIS airports you only get the message “runway free”.
Never did I get such a message, nor can I imagine how an AFIS ground operator could ever legally broadcast such. I never heard more than “no traffic reported, continue/land/take off at your own discretion.”
Never did I get such a message, nor can I imagine how an AFIS ground operator could ever legally broadcast such.
You have apparently never been to an AFIS airport in Sweden (or Norway). The AFISO does indeed report “Runway free” if the runway is free and what would be the legal problem with that?
I try to use my best judgement and not be overly prescriptive about the run-up. For example, yesterday at Blackpool, I pointed into the wind at the holding point, because that meant my prop blast was pointed away from the Tomahawk that was taxiing behind me, and the turn was only about 45 degrees or so to do so. But if no one’s following and it’s not that windy (basically, if my prop blast will be going over the tail) I’ll do it at the holding point without turning. The run up in the Auster just doesn’t take long enough that cooling is a major issue (in fact there’s really not much to do in the way of pre-takeoff checks).
I think that “cooling issue” is one of those OWTs in GA.
Just because there would be minimally more cooling if the nose were pointed into the wind, doesn’t mean it would become an issue if the nose weren’t pointed into the wind. I have never had any CHT issues at the hold (but then I am normally very quick with my “checklists”).
It’s a bit like the OWT about condensation in the tanks creating a water hazard. Just because there is some underlying principle of truth to it, that is sufficient for it to end up in PPL textbooks. Then, generations of pilots and instructors pick that up, preach it like parrots and it will never disappear again.
Yes; I agree, the cooling issue is BS.
What is real is doing power checks with the wind at 90 degrees to the aircraft. It causes funny vibration, because the upper blade has a different TAS to the lower one. But it doesn’t matter; you can still do it.
The 170A examiner “failed” me for doing power checks with the wind from behind me, saying that the wind will throw stones into the prop!
As they say, in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king, and on the PPL training scene, who is the king?
saying that the wind will throw stones into the prop!
That might happen in the Isle of Man :-) A friend once visited, when he arrived we went up Bradda Head and he lobbed a large stone off the edge of the cliff. Like a boomerang, it returned to him! (The RC glider guys say you can ridge soar a housebrick off the cliffs in the Isle of Man. We proved that this was indeed correct). The wind was probably about 70mph. In fairness, I think stones being thrown into your prop are the least of your worries if you’re trying to do a run up in a typical GA single in a storm force 9 gale!
