Definition
A flight path that alternates direction with sharp turns left and right, used during taxi or low-visibility ground operations to clear the area ahead of the airplane's nose that the pilot cannot otherwise see over the cowling.
Plain English
Turning the airplane back and forth in a series of S-shaped or zigzag movements so the pilot can see what is directly in front of the aircraft, since the nose blocks the forward view.
Context Anchor
Seen in visibility discussions when describing an uneven visual path, ground reference, or aircraft movement that changes direction repeatedly.
Derivation
From the German 'zickzack', describing a back-and-forth pattern. Used in aviation to describe deliberate side-to-side turning while taxiing to overcome blocked forward visibility.
Why Pilots Care
Straight flight in haze or low visibility can hide traffic or the runway behind the nose or glare; the zigzag widens the effective scan without losing overall track.
Intuition Check
Do not treat zigzag as a special named flight maneuver here. It simply describes a back-and-forth path or pattern.
Example Sentence 1
While taxiing the tailwheel airplane, the pilot used a gentle zigzag pattern to check for traffic ahead.
Example Sentence 2
Before descending into the valley the instructor had the student fly a short zigzag to confirm no traffic was below the cloud layer.