Originally Posted by
BobbyLeeSwagger
Haha, no but I'm talking about a 2 engine taxi where there is no SOP to time the clock. When we are doing a SE taxi, then yes, by all means. I do the same thing as you regarding the timing of passing 2 minutes. I have a card counting strategy.. 30 seconds for NB, 1 minute for WB:
Say you got 4 73s and 2 777s in line,
4 73s is worth 2 minutes, and the 777s are 2 minutes together. That's 4 minutes.. so you just wait till the line simmers down to 3 minutes worth of planes in any combination...because you need 1 minute to start and 2 minutes to warm up. So say the line simmers down to 2 777s and 2 73s, that's when you would start the 2nd engine. Actually works really nicely.
I know someone will roast me for going to great lengths for starting the 2nd engine so efficiently, but I promise you it's out of boredom.
FOs: if you forget the warm up clock like I always used to, the APU SHUTTING DOWN eicas takes 1:30 to clear from the screen after you shut it down. It's not 2 minutes but, its something...
Ah, yeah, I've never seen an FO time a two minute warm up on a two-engine taxi. Partly because I could count on one hand the number of times I've two-engine taxied as captain, and partly because it takes so long to run the before taxi check that 2 minutes is up before we even get moving!
Having met tower controllers, they'll tell you it's 1 minute per narrowbody and 2 minutes per widebody. I go off of that more often than not. But yeah, give yourself 3 minutes and you'll be golden (1 for engine start, 2 for the warm up).
I also perfected the technique of taking the north route in LAX and starting the second engine at the turn on E when there's no one in line and being perfectly warmed up as we line up with the centerline for 24L. Ah, those are the days...