Interesting. No big deal for the pilots but sounds like a lot of extra work for local controllers, telling pilots who use the more common procedure to switch back to Ground.

I agree,

Its a ways from the runup area to the hold short line. Finishing the runup in the runup area is not "ready for departure."

Throw in some other traffic in runup area and some traffic coming down taxiway, I feel its important to understand exactly what is proper.

Not to mention the runup area being a non-movement area.


So I guess my only outstanding question is concerning the orignal taxi clearance and what exactly it allows me to do regarding my positioning for a runup.

I used to train at a Class C and this brought back some memories! Here is how we conducted the runups with ground and hopefully it will be helpful.

All of the GA airplanes parked in one large area. I would normally call ground once I started up and would request a taxi clearance and also state I needed a runup.

There were two runup pads on the field. One was at the end of runway 28, so if going to that end ground would simply clear me to taxi to runway 28 and do my runup at the end of runway

After doing the runup here, I pulled up to the hold short line, switched to tower, and advised ready for departure.

The other runup pad was near the end of runway 10 but was off to the side and butted up to some hangars. If using this pad, ground would ask for me to call before continuing taxi. I think they asked this because I had to merge back onto the original taxiway in order to get to the runway, and they did not want to risk me screwing up their traffic flow.

Once finished, I would advise ground and they cleared me to taxi the rest of the way. Again, once I arrived at the hold short point I switched to tower and advised ready to depart.


...The moral of the story is if ground simply gave me a taxi clearance to the runway and no specific instructions to call them, I would complete the runup and taxi to the hold short line without further calls and then switch to tower. I only made calls to ground along the way if they asked me to.

Where it would bite the Local control hard is when a Cessna taxied up to the hold short line (from run-up) without calling ground, and they were IFR (and of course said nothing to Local like, "Cessna 123, holding short runway 26, IFR to Podunk".

The ground control only passed an IFR flight plan to Local when they called from the runup (unless it was a jet).

More than one got off the ground without an IFR release (transparent to the pilot; a serious operational error for the controllers involved).

Releases and the optimum departure sequence are the reasons you should call ready from the block. without moving up. It allows the local control to put you in the best place in line, or even keep you out of the line if necessary.