Pushback

Available now.

What it does

Request pushback from Ground before you start taxiing, and xatc works out which way your tail actually needs to go and approves it: "push back approved, tail south." Pushback is its own flight phase, between the clearance and taxi-out, and only Ground handles it -- asking Tower gets redirected with "contact Seattle Ground."

The tail direction comes from real geometry, not a guess: xatc looks for a taxilane behind your stand, on the way toward your departure runway, and works out which way the nose ends up pointing once you're pushed onto it -- the tail is the opposite direction. With no usable taxilane nearby, it defaults to a straight push, tail opposite your parked heading.

Pushback has to be requested -- it's never automatic -- and it's only available while the aircraft is still on the ground and hasn't started taxiing yet: ask after taxi has begun and you'll get "say again" instead.

IFR flights need their clearance first. Ask for pushback (or taxi) before you've gotten your IFR clearance and Ground won't approve it -- you'll get "clearance on one two eight point zero" (Clearance Delivery's frequency) instead, and nothing changes until you go get it. A field with no separate Clearance Delivery has Ground issue the clearance itself rather than send you somewhere that doesn't exist. VFR flights skip this entirely -- there's no IFR clearance to wait for, so Ground approves pushback and taxi straight away.

Conformance tie-in

Pushing back without asking isn't invisible: moving more than 50 m from where you were parked, without a pushback or taxi clearance, is caught by the same taxiing-without- clearance rule that catches an unauthorized taxi -- slow pushback creep stays under the taxi speed threshold, but not this distance check. Once pushback (or taxi) is actually approved, the check stops applying.

See also: VFR pattern work, which always uses this no-clearance-needed Ground path.