Thursday, July 19, 2012

Hot Spots


Let’s talk about hot spots.  No, I am not referring to the Saturday night variety, but the ones that can be found at airports.  One of the FAA’s hot buttons is runway incursions, and the designation of hot spots is an effort to help you avoid becoming a runway incursion statistic.  Before I dive into this topic, I want to give credit to Steve Thibault for the idea for this article.  Steve works with me in Sim Flite Minnesota and recently gave an excellent seminar on using the iPad in the cockpit.  This section on hot spots was presented in his seminar.

Due to the format limitations of Blogger, you can read this article up on the Sim Flite Minnesota website, where the images are actually large enough to be seen.


Steve chose the downtown St Paul airport (STP) to use as an example.  It has a somewhat odd layout of runways.  This has no doubt helped create some incursions.  Below is the airport diagram for STP, which shows the designated hot spot areas.



As you can see, it has two runways with similar designations, runway 32 and runway 31.  This is almost a guaranteed recipe for incursions.  There is a text description of the hot spots.



So it’s probably not the most useful of descriptions.  But let’s employ another tool to get a better idea of what a pilot will actually see and why it can be misleading.  The picture below was captured using Google Earth.  The focus is on the H3 hot spot.



Now let’s zoom in for a much closer look.



Now the source of confusion becomes much more apparent.  We’ve been taught from the time we were student pilots to clear the runway before stopping to take care of after-landing items.  But look at where the hold short lines are for each runway.  Confused over solid versus dashed lines?  Remember the following little saying.

Dash across the dashed lines
Stop solid at the solid lines

So let’s say you have just landed on runway 32 and the tower tells you to exit on delta and hold short of runway 31.  By the time your aircraft’s nose reaches the hold short lines for runway 31, your tail might still be hanging out on runway 32.  So remembering your flight instructor saying “Get off the runway first”, you creep forward to get your offending tail off of runway 32.  And you have now just committed a runway incursion, and the tower may give you a phone number to call.

Today as pilots we have so much information available to us.  Google Earth allows you to actually see your destination airport.  And with GPS and your iPad, you can even follow your airplane’s progress on a taxiway.   Bottom line?  Don’t become an FAA statistic.  Use today’s ever-expanding technology to help keep you safe.












8 comments:

D.B. said...

Heck, I don't think I would know what to do if faced with those lines, and I'm a CFI! I think I would just say "unable unless you give me clearance to cross the other runway"!

Unknown said...

Happy to be catching up on Linda's last couple blogs :-(

I learned to fly at STP and always had my airport diagram handy. Great place to learn how to find your way around an airport.

Anonymous said...

Hi

I found your blog posts really interesting and was wondering if you be interested in joining glipho? its a social publishing engine designed for bloggers/writers to further promote their blog posts.Sounds interesting? If yes then you can visit http://glipho.com/ and sign up.

Happy writing

Neha



Jason said...

great info about the hotspots, not sure how I'd cope with the lines either

JetAviator7 said...

Interesting post and well thought out. Be sure and grab your aviator sunglasses before your next flight and protect your eyes!

Unknown said...

Best Online training attending for more Information :- http://flightattendanthiring.com

Easily learn flight attending with training at www.flightattendanthiring.com. We work with you until you are hired for Flight Attendant Jobs.

For Visit :- Flight attending training

Josh Jordan said...

Always interesting information.   Keep up to date with what is happening in the airline and commercial aircraft world at Air101.co.uk

Best Travel Destinations said...

Book your discount airfare Flight Ticket on best deals at Traveloview.
Discount Flight Tickets
Discounted Airfare Deals
Discounted Airfare Deals Flights