cowman
Final Approach
So suppose you're at a small airport on a busy weekend... say labor day weekend at a popular vacation spot. Upon arrival you were parked by the line guy at the far end of the ramp from the taxiway, there are two rows of aircraft and just enough room to taxi/tow an airplane between the rows. There really isn't any space on the ramp where there aren't parked aircraft until you pull off onto the taxiway.
You've seen bad weather coming in the next morning and want to get out before it hits. The FBO is currently closed and nobody is available to get your airplane out. You're perfectly capable of getting your towbar out and hauling it over to the taxiway past about a dozen parked aircraft
Is it generally considered a jerk move in such circumstance to start up and taxi past... knowing you're close enough to be sandblasting everyone on the way by? Would you generally just use muscle power and pull your airplane out to the taxiway and clear of other aircraft to be nice? Or do you figure nobody cares and just save yourself the effort?
Full disclosure yeah this happened to me. I happened to have a friend with and for two of us to pull my lightly loaded Archer across the ramp wasn't very hard so we just did it. I was wondering if I was really saving anyone wear and tear on their airplane or not. Always heard it was bad to start up in or right in front of a hangar for this reason... so I had to assume right next to other aircraft had to be similar.
You've seen bad weather coming in the next morning and want to get out before it hits. The FBO is currently closed and nobody is available to get your airplane out. You're perfectly capable of getting your towbar out and hauling it over to the taxiway past about a dozen parked aircraft
Is it generally considered a jerk move in such circumstance to start up and taxi past... knowing you're close enough to be sandblasting everyone on the way by? Would you generally just use muscle power and pull your airplane out to the taxiway and clear of other aircraft to be nice? Or do you figure nobody cares and just save yourself the effort?
Full disclosure yeah this happened to me. I happened to have a friend with and for two of us to pull my lightly loaded Archer across the ramp wasn't very hard so we just did it. I was wondering if I was really saving anyone wear and tear on their airplane or not. Always heard it was bad to start up in or right in front of a hangar for this reason... so I had to assume right next to other aircraft had to be similar.