AA.II.C.K6
C
What does AA.II.C.K6 mean?
Appropriate flight deck activities prior to taxi, including route planning, identifying the location of Hot Spots, and coordinating with crew if, applicable..
- Area of Operation
- II
- Task
- C
- Element type
- A Knowledge element — a fact, concept, or procedure the FAA expects you to know and that the knowledge (written) test draws questions from.
What you need to know
This task is about safely and correctly navigating the airport surface, so the core idea is situational awareness before you ever move: know your airport diagram, current NOTAMs, and any published taxi routes or Hot Spots (intersections with a history of confusion or incursions) before pushback or taxi. On the surface, you follow taxi clearances precisely, cross-check signs (yellow location/direction signs, red-and-white mandatory instruction signs) and markings (hold-short lines, runway/taxiway edges) against what ATC or the airport diagram tells you, and never enter or cross a runway without an explicit clearance or, at a nontowered field, without confirming it's clear and announcing your intentions. Lighting and light-gun signals matter both for other traffic to see you and for you to interpret airport lighting correctly, especially at night or in low visibility, where disorientation risk goes up and you rely more heavily on charts, markings, and deliberate scanning rather than assumptions. For multiengine airplanes, understand when single-engine taxi is appropriate and the extra care it requires for directional control and situational awareness while taxiing.
Why students miss this
Students often treat taxi clearance readback and runway crossing as a routine memory-item task rather than a compliance-critical one, so they miss that a clearance to taxi 'to' a runway does not authorize crossing any runway along the route, and each runway crossing or hold short instruction must be explicitly issued and read back. They also underestimate how Hot Spots, airport diagrams, and low-visibility or night conditions change the required scan and communication discipline, leading them to pick answers that assume a single generic taxi procedure applies everywhere.
Focus on: Study the distinction between taxi-to clearances and explicit runway crossing/hold-short authorizations, and practice reading airport diagrams to identify Hot Spots and complex intersections before you ever need it in the airplane.
Drill this area until it sticks
AA.II.C.K6 came from a question you missed on the FAA Airline Transport Pilot Multiengine Airplane knowledge test. Drill ACS-aligned practice questions with AI explanations and the cited FAA handbook reference behind every answer — free to start.
Missing it isn't a verdict on you — it's a sign your prep skipped the why behind it. Memorizing answer letters is exactly what leaves gaps like this. Here, every answer explains the reasoning and cites the FAA source it comes from, so the concept holds on test day and at the checkride oral.
Study this concept
Plain-English explanations of the key ideas behind AA.II.C.K6, grounded in the FAA handbooks.
Related ACS codes in C
Other elements the FAA tests under this same Task — review them together.
- AA.II.C.K1Current airport aeronautical references and information resources such as the Chart Supplement,…
- AA.II.C.K10Low visibility taxi operations and techniques used to avoid disorientation.
- AA.II.C.K11Single-engine taxi procedures (AMEL).
- AA.II.C.K2Taxi instructions/clearances including published taxi routes.
- AA.II.C.K3Airport markings, signs, and lights.
- AA.II.C.K4Appropriate aircraft lighting for day and night operations.
- AA.II.C.K5Push-back procedures, if applicable.
- AA.II.C.K7Communications at towered and nontowered airports.
+ 2 more elements in this Task.
Common question
Do I need a separate clearance for each runway I cross while taxiing?
Yes, at a towered airport each runway crossing generally requires a specific ATC instruction; a clearance to taxi to your departure runway does not by itself authorize crossing other runways along the way.
What is an FAA ACS code?
The FAA's Airman Certification Standards (ACS) break each certificate into Areas of Operation, Tasks, and specific Knowledge (K), Risk Management (R), and Skill (S) elements. Every knowledge-test question maps to one code like AA.II.C.K6. When you miss a question, your Airman Knowledge Test Report lists its code so you know exactly what to review.
Have a whole list of codes from your report? Paste them all into our free ACS code lookup to see every weak area at once — or browse the aviation glossary for plain-English definitions.