5
Taxi and Takeoff
•Conduct a pre-taxi radio check on the air-to-air frequency
–Verifies that everyone has the right frequency and is ready to taxi
–Lead relays essential ATIS information and frequency change
•Flight leader should lead on the ramp – Look Sharp!
–Leader in front helps prevent runway incursions
–I prefer a staggered taxi position to avoid prop wash and debris
•Don’t rush your runup!
–Everyone sets tower frequency in the runup area
–Only the lead squawks the transponder code
–Thumbs up to go and pass the signal along to the lead
•Start with staggered departures until you have experience
–Take alternate sides of the runway – lead on downwind side
–Wing delays 3 to 5 seconds before starting his take-off roll
The time to find out that someone's radio doesn't work, or that he has the wrong air-to-air frequency is on the ramp, not in the run-up area – or even worse, in the air!   Only the lead needs to get the full ATIS information.  It's more important for the flight to be waiting for him on one frequency.  After getting the ATIS, lead will call "Eze flight, radio check… one"  The flight will respond "two …, three, … etc." to verify that they are up and ready.  Based on the ATIS, lead then calls “Eze flight … expect runway #, wind xxx at xx, altimeter xx.xx,” and any other pertinent ATIS information.  The lead may choose to exclude extraneous ATIS information (airship operations on a closed runway, etc.) if it isn't relevant to flight safety.  Lead then calls “Eze Flight … monitor ground on xxx point x”, and he looks for “thumbs up” from #2 to begin his taxi.  A "thumbs up" from #2 indicates that #2 is ready and that #2 has a verified “thumbs up” from #3, #3 has verified #4, etc.
When taxiing on the ramp, precision is just as important as in the air – perhaps more so since you are more visible, and a collision is arguably more likely (no step-down here!).  The military guys like line-in-trail taxi; but you eat a lot of wind in an Eze, and a tight angle-off taxi looks sharper.
Rushing your run-up is a very bad idea!  Take your time and be sure you are completely ready before committing with a “thumbs up”.  You are going to have very little time on the roll to catch a problem, so do it right at run-up!  Ideally, lead would instruct the flight to switch to tower prior to launch.  The ground controller, however, will not like you using his frequency for your flight communications!  This comment goes double for the tower and ATC, so don’t “borrow” controller frequencies for use by the flight.  The best procedure is for everyone to switch to tower prior to “thumbs up”, just like solo flight.  If you don’t hear tower clear the flight to depart, you messed up.
Remember – only the lead's transponder should be on.  Multiple transponders will generate a mid-air warning on ATC radar that will drive the controllers crazy.  Definitely expect to hear from them if you forget to turn your transponder off!
Even though it makes join-up a bit more difficult, start off by using staggered departures.