A Boeing 767 can taxi up a shallow-grade taxiway on one engine and no additional power. I should know -- I have been taxiing big airplanes up the hill in Atlanta next to Delta's Jet Base for over 28 years now.The key to the whole conga-line taxi thing is to take your time and not get in a hurry. If you push up the throttle a lot to break free, you'll just have to yank it back and use more brake when you want to stop after traveling 10 feet. Just push the throttle up an eighth of an inch and wait. In a few seconds, when it feels like the airplane is ready, release the parking brake and creep forward. You'll do this an average of about 50 times when you taxi out of Atlanta during a busy push. Be sure to set the parking brake every time you stop. You don't want to roll backwards into the plane behind you.A long line of airliners waiting for takeoff is nothing new at any of the busy airports in our country. They have been as common as zits on a prom date ever since I can remember.My co-pilot, Sally, was reading a statement from the CEO of the very airline who owned the jet base we were creeping past. According to the article Sally was reading -- in clear defiance of both the sterile cockpit rules and company policy -- Delta was now blaming their financial woes on general aviation. Apparently, according to the CEO at Widget Wonderland, it is those pesky, small airplanes that are making all of the airliners schedule their push-backs within minutes of each other and then line up like Russians at a cheese sale to wait almost an hour for takeoff.Sally pulled back on the locking handle of her cockpit window and, after cranking the window open, stuck her head out of the airplane for a look around."I was just looking for that Piper Cub that was blocking our path to big profits," she said. "Nope, nary a Cub or a Cirrus to be seen out there -- just a bunch of smoky, smelly jets dripping fluids and burning about 2,000 pounds an hour of fuel apiece."We may not be stuck behind a chiropractor in a Tri-Pacer, I said, but I've read what that guy had to say and based on that, I'm sure we'll be stopped by a swarm of VLJs during our climb out. Hell, they may even limit us to 250 knots until we get through about Flight Level 240.That got a laugh from Sally and also from our jumpseat rider, Joe. He was heading up to New York to cover a trip to London and was already asleep, but woke himself long enough to laugh at the irony. We are almost always restricted to 250 knots nowadays. The speed restrictions aren't due to little jets or fabric-covered flying milk stools. We are slowed down because the airlines constantly try to cram 50 pounds of poop into a 10-pound sack.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/features/ceo-of-the-cockpit-73-those-devilish-little-airplanes