Preflight Tricks

The preflight inspection is an important responsibility. Unfortunately, it is also one of the
most mundane, causing many pilots to take it for granted and overlook potential
problems. This has resulted in many preventable accidents. Pilots often rush the
preflight to get to the fun part — flying. A good preflight often eliminates the first link in
an accident chain.

Instructors should remain involved with the preflight process to keep students on their
toes and stress its importance. Don’t miss the opportunity to provide additional training
during this precious time, like discussing aircraft systems as you walk around the
airplane together.

Use your creativity to customize how you teach a preflight; make it a game. Some of my
games have hidden agendas. For example, while setting runup power, have your
students look out the window and guess when the RPM is at its target. Do this on every
flight. After a few times, they will learn to set the RPM without looking at the tachometer.
Why do I want a student to be able to do this? I don’t. But with their eyes out the
window, they are more likely to become aware of inadvertent aircraft movement and
apply more brake pressure, making it less likely to hit something accidentally, which
happens often.

Another preflight task with a hidden agenda is pulling the airplane forward from its
parking spot to inspect the full circumference of the tires. Doing this prevents a pilot
from becoming one of many who have embarrassingly attempted to taxi from a parking
spot with the aircraft still tied down.

If you can’t see a control surface from the cockpit, turn the aircraft to see the flight
control’s shadow while checking it. Too many have perished from attempting to fly an
airplane with misrigged or disconnected flight controls.

Accidents have also been caused by taking off with a loose exhaust stack, leading to an
engine fire. Pilots must be particularly vigilant during preflight inspections conducted
after any maintenance or inspections. Always assume that things might not have been
put back together properly.

Another technique is to “sabotage” the airplane before your student arrives to see if they
discover the problem you created. You have a powerful teaching moment if and when
your student doesn’t catch the problem. However, it cannot be overstated that you must
be certain that the airplane has been reconfigured before flight.

Hire a mechanic for an hour to teach you what to look for when you preflight an
airplane. They know far more about the aircraft and its idiosyncrasies than you do.

Every aspect of the preflight inspection should be taken seriously. Discovering a
problem on the ground is usually only an inconvenience, but it can potentially be a
tragedy when taken aloft.

Those who enter their airplanes with the same complacency as they do
their automobiles are doomed to regret it.