"Julian Scarfe" wrote in message
...
It's difficult to tell as I have limited experience of flying in the US,
but
it didn't seem unusual for minutes to go by without the runway being in
use.
My last flight in the US involved an unscheduled stop at PAE after a door
came open in flight. We landed on the runway and instead of asking us to
vacate we got to stop, fix the door and then backtrack on the runway to
the
end. Does Paine Field count as quiet?

I'm based at Paine. It does have its quiet moments, but I wouldn't want to
sit on the runway for any extended period of time, not as a general rule.
You don't say what kind of airplane you were in, or what the nature of the
flight was. I assume that since you say you backtracked on the runway, the
airplane must've been pretty small. I personally would not have accepted
the offer to backtrack on the runway, not at Paine. Your experience is a
good example of a scenario that may or may not be entirely safe.

(That said, I'm a bit surprised you needed to backtrack on the runway
anyway. Assuming you landed on the long runway, there should have been
plenty of room for a stop-and-go. If you landed on one of the shorter ones,
the taxiway exits are close enough together that it's hardly a more
significant effort to taxi back on an actual taxiway. There's no
operational reason that justifies the reduction in safety to backtaxi on any
runway at Paine).

The bottom line IMHO is that as the pilot, it's hard to know for sure
whether current circumstances allow one to safely remain on the runway for
extended periods of time, and controllers are falliable. Aviation safety is
predicated on the idea that one makes every effort to avoid potentially
serious situations, even if those situations rarely result in a problem.

In any case, I would certainly never say that one should never wait on the
runway, but one ought to only do so when one has VERY good information with
respect to what aircraft are actually in the area, a reasonable idea of how
long the wait will be, and a good escape plan in case the wait goes longer
than expected. And one should do it only when there's a really good reason
for doing so (i.e. some benefit that justifies the risk).

Furthermore (and more relevant to your original comment) I can *easily* see
why there's such a strong aversion to this sort of thing. It's rarely an
operational necessity, and when it is, it should still only be undertaken
with the same (presumably high degree of) caution used in other areas of
flight. The aversion is quite understandable IMHO.

Pete