Our airport, Caldwell (CDW), has two runways. Runways 22 and 27 are crossed
almost at the approach edge of Rwy 22.

The other day, I was landing on 22, and on a very short final (no more than
100 ft to the numbers and a crossing runway) I heard the controller say

" Cessna 123, runway 27, cleared for take-off"

which would mean I was about to be rammed from the left by a departing
Cessna. So I keyed the mike and uttered something in feeble protest. The
controller said to me curtly: "This is called 'anticipated separation'. The
aircraft was not even on the runway yet!"

I did apologize as I don't generally believe in arguing with the ATC.
However I thought that a position & hold instruction to that Cessna would be
more appropriate in that particular situation.

-- City Dweller



"Peter R." wrote in message
...
I just received an email from my FBO, who received word from ATC at our
class C airport, that the FAA is phasing out the "position and hold"
instruction "to try to curb the runway incursions and controller errors."

At my home base, which is a class C airport in Syracuse, NY, the
elimination of this instruction could occur as soon as March 20th.

From the wording of the email, apparently this has already happened at
Philadelphia International and will probably sweep the country this
spring.
The triple runway incursion at LAX last week seems to have hastened this
move.

While the traffic at our airport is light to moderate, I am curious how
this will impact airports like La Guardia or Boston Logan, two airports
where the P&H instruction definitely speeds up departures.

--
Peter