Pushback Approved…“Facing x”

Hey there IF community I have came up with a proposition to make ground traffic flow smoother specifically in the ramp area. If we add alongside the pushback clearance the direction in which to face for example, “Pushback approved, Expect RWY x, Facing East/West/South/North). If this is implemented into the pushback clearance this will prevent so many ground conflicts with aircraft pushing back in opposite directions since many ramps are bidirectional. With this we could have all outbound aircraft face the direction towards “Exit” from the ramp it will use, or in a direction that will not block other planes going into or out of a gate near by. With this little but yet important detail in the clearance combined with progressive taxi instructions it could very well enhance ground control/flow a whole lot more for both pilots and atc alike!

Unfortunately, I am Out of Vote.

Actually, This is Using In VATSIM Very much
And Useful.

Wee neeed This !!

8 Likes

Wow thats weird. I opened up the IFC to make this request! It’s a great idea and would definitely help!

5 Likes

Bumping this. It’s more realistic and better tha saying “expect runway XX”

3 Likes

I totally agree I am tired of pushing back at let’s say Atlanta and there be another aircraft having a stare off with me

2 Likes

Bumping and voted :)

Good suggestion. It will be more realistic

With taxiway vectoring this would enhance the ATC options on the ground even further and is definitely needed for a lot of airport layouts!

5 Likes

This has my vote

Okay, I have just found this and this is a PHENOMENAL request, absolutely needed! I will be freeing up a vote for this right now because this is an absolute must! Definitely not going to be forcing all of my friends to vote for this too 👀 (kidding, sort of…)

As a IFATC myself i can confirm that this would help a lot, to first of all end the face off’s but to also be able to handle the traffic better, with example having all the departures face West and then take all the arrivals east and then into the terminal behind the depts. So 100% a yes for me

3 Likes

That’s a BIG need for me too, IFATC need this !

Really missing in hubs. We need this!

Bump. Such a small thing, but it will bring so much benefit

Bump on this !

I support this feature, but I would like to point out, that this would create a large amount of chaos, mainly because pilots would not know how to follow a proper command.

An example would be, in an airport with horizontal gates (taxiway thus is north-south), a pushback command given “South” could be interpreted in two different ways-“pushing” south, which would result in taxiing north, or pushing north while “facing” south, which would result in taxiing south. Both of these interpretations can be easily be, terminologically speaking, altered by pilots however they’d like, resulting on more disorder.

This is compounded by the fact that most controllers view pushback as the very first communication between pilots and ATC, and that it is a very simple, direct communication exchange (either resulting in approval or a temporary hold). Additionally, to educate pilots on this topic (or either have them view the map in the first place to identify the proper direction) would be a challenge on its own, taking into account the rather large negligence the User Guide is given.

I could see this being incorporated while being complemented by a map feature that would guide pilots (similar to how Drag & Taxi uses a line, rather than having identify taxiways themselves), however this would a colossal difficulty, especially since there are several examples of complex pushback protocols across the world, and this would likely airport editors to once more update airports’ taxi layouts as was done for drag & taxi.

3 Likes

Let’s restart this topic, @Jose_gil Adding images and examples may be better!


When the yellow plane taxi along the yellow route, the green plane request pushback. So I hope he faces south and taxi along the green rote.

I will send him the ‘expect runway 20R’, but it is not accurate enough because the runway is in the north, so the green plane will be pushed north after receiving the command, which is not what I want


You can see that the following method is clearly better than the one above

I think ‘Face XX’ is not difficult to understand, with the face facing XX. If this feature is developed, the User Guide will definitely add explanations about it