Originally Posted by Dream Land
Why is "hold your position" very clear but "taxi into position and hold" so confusing?
It's not the instructions themselves that are confusing, but the fact that two instructions resemble each other so much that there's a risk that one might think hearing one, while the ATCO actually said the other one.
Don't you think that sooner or later a crew (while very busy in the cockpit with heavy radio traffic, static interference and several stations transmitting at the same time) will hear the words "hold" and "position" and enter the rwy thnking they were cleared to do so, while in fact ATC said: "hold position"?
Using "line up and wait" takes away that risk! A pilot then knows that when he hears the word "hold" that it can NEVER be a line-up instruction.
Of course you could also change the sentence "hold position" to "stop" and change "hold short of..." to "stop before.."
My point is that the FAA should get rid of the fact that two words (hold and position) are used in instructions that have opposite meanings. Just like the fact that since the 1977 Tenerife accident the word "takeoff" can ONLY be used in the "cleared for takeoff" instruction.
Wouldn't that be an obvious improvement towards safety?