Simviation Forums

hey ya'll

I've been wondering!!

what is the correct taxi speed on

Jet ?

Prop ?

any ideas ?

At most real world airports it is 10 mph or 15 mph. But I wish I had a dime for every time one would taxi at 25 mph and above. And as strange as it may sound I have never heard a tower tell a plane to slow down unless there was other traffic on the taxi way. I used to work at KJAX and worked in operations and we had a radio that was tuned to the ground freq.
The speed would be slower in bad weather such as fog or heavy rain.

There are no general speed limits on airports, likte it is for cars.

But you want to avoid taxiing faster than 25-30kts. Not because of safety reasons, but the ride would be more noisy and bumpy, especially on those concrete taxiways

For 90degree turns, 8-10kts is a good reference


This applies on the bigger jets, don't know (as usual) about the props  :)

If your wheels come off the ground then you're taxiing to quickly is my rule-of-thumb
Actually with props it depends if its tricycle or tail-wheel. Tricycle you can get away with up to about 25, but don't corner to fast Tail-wheel you have to go slower, especially in corners, narrow under-carriage like a Spit will happily tip-over if you're not careful, and if you break to fast they nose over spectacularly

Ozzy

Isn't it that during bad weather you have to slow down to like 15knots or something?

i usually like to parade my plane slowly down the taxiway, specially after a long successful flight....

but overall, i avoid going over 20-25 kts...

Don't ask why, but I usually go just under takeoff speed on those long taxiways, but around 10kts on a short taxi or when I'm in a taildraggers. Those a really hard to taxi...

Back a few weeks I flew to an airshow in a Dash-8 along with a plane load of pilots,trainees and other enthusiasts. Everyone commented on how fast we taxiied out to depart.

However on our return from the show we landed short,pulled up quickly,did a 180 turn on the main runway and very rapidly backtracked to a taxiway.

Comments such as:
"THIS is walking speed?!?" were heard through out the cabin.

A few things came to mind as to why we were travelling so fast.
Was it because the company hangars were at that end of the field?
Did the pilots feel that with a bunch of aviation knowledgeable passengers they weren't scaring anyone?
Was it the other aircraft on approach which landing lights we could see that caused the tower to mention that magic word---"Expedite"

We were motoring

Cheers

packercolinl, interesting story
I guess pilots have their own preferable technique (which often doesn't comply with company standards, lol)

I was once onboard a Dash8 (Q400) that floated halfway down the runway...even I who has seen some very odd stuff in my life, started to wonder what the hell he was doing.

Anyway as we left the aircraft I spoke to the co-pilot, and he said "well, the taxiway is so far from the touchdown zone, so we wanted to save fuel and time by reducing the distance to the taxiway, we didnt scare you guys, did we?"

No not me, but my girlfriend


But okay. I guess that's allright with a small Dash8, where the margins are on your side  ::)

I was a passenger aboard a SAAB 340 and when we landed he seemed to be going extremely fast and did not actually touch down for quite a ways down the runway.  Now I bet it was for the reason nexus mentioned.  However, when we were taxiing he didn't seem to be in any big hurry.

Jim

its all about company policy. Ryanair and easyjet are notorius for pulling upwards of 35 to 40 knots on bristols main taxiway, how do i know this, because i had the pleasure of watching one fly past like it was on its takeoff roll on my second lesson. best bet is to stick to 30 knots on long taxiways and 10-15 on shorter taxiways. sadly some LCC's are desperate to keep on sched they will in some cases put the plane at risk, as was discussed a while back

My flight school at Archerfield instructs to keep about a fast walking pace in our tricycle gear tomahawks.  And to slow down to about 5 - 10 kts on corners so the plane doesn't tip over, very bad if you happen to be inside at the time.