Single Engine taxi on Turboprops –*Who's doing it?

[skkm]

The thread title says it all –*which turboprop operators are currently conducting single engine taxi operations as SOP?

[Tu.114]

Tyrolean does.

For taxi-out, we start both engines at the gate but are encouraged to unfeather only one propeller for taxi as long as there is no long taxi in a strong tailwind expected, the ground is not contaminated or slippery etc. Before arming the autofeather during the taxi check, both condition levers need to be at MAX because otherwise the autofeather selection would cause a failed self-test that would lock the system up. To get a heavy aircraft going uphill or in case of short taxi distances, both propellers are typically unfeathered to make life a bit easier.

For taxi-in, again in absence of the above mentioned conditions, we feather #1 as soon as practicable after vacating the runway and after a cooling period of 30 seconds shut it down. This of course kills the #1 hydraulic pump, so a brief check of the SPUs correct operation occurs after #1 prop has come to a standstill. Of course, if one has to make tight turns on the apron, it is better to keep both propellers turning, as slow turns into the running engine are not always possible, but as long as one can carry along a little bit of momentum for the turn into the parking stand, it works just fine.

[TRY2FLY]

Aer Arann does single engine taxi on the ATR as does Flybe on the Dash 8

[skkm]

Thanks for the info, just what I was after. Cheers!

[Piltdown Man]

Overall I believe it's a sensible idea. But when we did have turboprops we stopped doing it because of, in my opinion, pathetic fleet management policy. Their belief was that the anti-col light would extinguish as soon as the last generator came off line which was true. But that would happen one or two engines. Connecting ground power before the engines were shut down would alleviate the problem, but due to equally pathetic "elf'n'safetee" that was not possible (in the UK) until the beacon light was off and the engines shut down. But when the last generator drops off line...

Basically, Tu has covered most of the issues regarding single engine taxiing. In a nutshell, it's "think about it first". If you might need two engines, leave them both on.

[Tinwacker]

WINGS AIR part of the Lion Air Group Indonesia

ATR72, this is more observation than SOP, on taxi in the left engine is shut down so that when the aircraft arrives at the gate the left propeller is stationary and allows quick disembarkation of passengers from the rear left door safely. The right engine is normally kept running until ground power is connected, occassionally see the prop lock being used and the right engine remains as the APU supplying electrical power.

[Jet Jockey A4]

When I flew the Dash 7 we did 2 engine taxi and 1 engine taxi on the Dash 8.

BTW, that was in 1987-88 and 89.