http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZSs_Fmyvx4 Can any aircraft do this? If so how do you request it to the ground or tower? Please explain how this rare procedure works, cheers tom.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZSs_Fmyvx4 Can any aircraft do this? If so how do you request it to the ground or tower? Please explain how this rare procedure works, cheers tom.

This use to be common with MD-80's, DC9's or 727's, but not to much anymore. I've been on many of these planes that did this. You wouldn't see this on planes with the engines on the wings, due to their lower mounting, there's more of a risk of ground debris being sucked into the engines, then the higher fuselage mounted engines. I don't think they do it much anymore, unless a tug is unavailable I guess they may to keep schedule.

Most airplanes "can" do it. Most are not "allowed" to do it...anymore. Airplanes with wing mounted engines like the 737 used to do this too. But the hazard for FOD ingestion and a terrible accident (Palm 90, a 737-200 crashed into a bridge on takeoff from DCA after doing a powerback on a ice/slush covered ramp) led to the banning of the practice for all but a few airframes.We did powerbacks on 90% of our departures at AirTran using the DC-9 and 717, but that was almost 10 years ago, and now that the -9's are gone, I'm not sure that they do it anymore. The whole Idea was to save money by not buying pushback tractors, but since they got 737's, it's probably a moot point. I can still taste the sand from the many (many) times I marshalled DC-9's doing powerbacks on a freshly sanded ramp in the winter. Yummie!The last time I saw a powerback with my own two eyes was an American MD-80 at BWI in 2005. I was in the ramp tower at the time, and the USAirways ramp controller substituted the word "pushback" with "powerback". Otherwise, the clearance was exactly the same as any other. At a lot of airports, the ramp is a "non-movement area" and therefore, no clearance required. In that case, the company will coordinate with the airport authority what procedures are to be used. Sometimes an airport will prohibit powerbacks even if the airline/aircraft are authorized to perform them.There was a brief discussion about turboprops doing powerbacks in the PMDG J41 forum. Suffice it to say, that depending on where you are in the world, you can see a lot of unauthorized things being done with airplanes of all types.

...another interesting point is that I remember aircraft in FS98 could do a powerback, but then it was as if it had been disabled in FS2000+.

...another interesting point is that I remember aircraft in FS98 could do a powerback, but then it was as if it had been disabled in FS2000+.

There is nothing stopping you from doing a powerback in fs...

Turboprop airplanes can do it. They can even do parallel parking. As said before, the clearance is the same, but instead of a pushback you request for a powerback. That's it.

Not allowed to do it on the ERJ-145. I'm sure we could but it wouldn't be pretty from the gate.