Newbie question: "Sequence"

[mrhahn]

Afternoon all,

I've been listening to the JFK Ground feed for a while now, and you occasionally hear pilots being told that they're "in sequence" with another plane. Does this mean that they're to follow that plane all the way to the runway, presumably then waiting for takeoff clearance from the tower?

Thanks.

[cessna157]

Yes, ground is pointing out their takeoff sequence, which means they are to takeoff after that aicraft.  Usually, the way JFK works, on taxi out ground will assign your departure runway and point you in the correct direction to get to the runway.  At some point you'll merge in behind another aircraft, which will be your sequence, and they will then instruct you to monitor tower at that point, instead of waiting until you get to the runway.

[mrhahn]

Thanks, cessna. All makes sense now!

[EdGeneer]

I would think that in larger airports such as JFK, there are so many ac/ on each flight strip, they must keep things in sequence to keep things as sane as possible in the tower. With the speed things roll and the freqency of inbound and outbound a/c, an out of sequence a/c would cause too much of a time disctraction and that cannot be afforded with the volumes they must deal with...