Pushback for small planes

I either can power up and pull out, or I have to push it back on my
own. Depends on how the aircraft is parked. Noone has ever pushed it
back for me.

On Sat, 14 Oct 2006 23:14:47 +0200, Mxsmanic
wrote:

In simulation, I note that I'm apparently expected to have my plane
pushed back from its parking place before I start the engines and
taxi, judging from the way the aircraft are parked (with very little
room to turn around on their own). Are real small aircraft tugged and
pushed back, or do you just start the engines and move out under your
own power?


Mike Alexander
PP-ASEL
Temecula, CA
See my online aerial photo album at
http://flying.4alexanders.com

I used to rent a plane with a sweet parking spot at Santa Monica
airport. It was a Cherokee (N8258S) that parked in the lower
southeast. It was parked with the tail a few feel from a cyclone fence
and faced outwards into the taxi lane. You'd start up and taxi
straight out without having the pull the plane anywhere.

The magic part about the parking spot was putting it back. I'd taxi
down to in front of the parking spot, do a neat partial pirouette so
the plane was facing outwards, then shut down the engine. The parking
was a very slight hill, so the plane would slowly roll backwards into
its parking spot. I'd steer it as needed with the rudder, then slow it
gently with the brakes (it never got over 1mph) when it was about time
to stop. The wheels would drop down into the slight depression in the
asphalt they'd made over the years and no further brake pressue was
required. No parking brake needed, no crazed runaway plane backing
into the fence, nothin'. Just sweet, non-sweaty zero-towbar parking
without needing the luxury of pull-through.

I've since moved, and the lower southeast has been turned into some
non-aviation (or at least, non-aircraft parking) area so I believe the
plane lives elsewhere in the airport now.