Standard Operating Procedures Course

In this course, we learn how Standard Operating Procedures are a cornerstone of flight safety. Learn the procedures that professional pilots use in a single pilot environment.

Ground Chapters

Chapter 1: General

Bracketing Safety

This lesson will review Single Pilot Resource Management and help ensure that you are operating at your prime every time you fly. Over the years, I've researched how to distill procedures that work for commercial aviators into procedures that will work in general aviation. We call what we've learned "Bracketing Safety".

Preflight Checks

This lesson suggests some practical ways to apply the alphabet soup of acronyms we learn in training such as PAVE, IMSAFE, AROW, and more.

Chapter 2: Ground Operations

Pre-Taxi Briefing

Professional pilots all perform a briefing of the taxi route before the airplane is moved. This is an opportunity to review the hot spots and the airport diagram for any potential hazards.

Taxi Turns

Standardizing your taxi operation can add safety to your flying and allow you to detect critical instrument errors before the airplane leaves the ground.

The Before-Takeoff Check

The "run up" is done short of the runway and is the last chance to find an issue with the flight control system, the charging system, the avionics, and the engine before we head out.

Pre-Takeoff Briefing

I often tell students that if you can't get in front of the airplane before it even starts moving, we've got problems. The pre-takeoff briefing is an opportunity to do just that. This lesson will teach you to standardize the process.

Takeoff Callouts

Takeoff callouts are a way to bring redundancy to a single pilot environment and tie your actions during takeoff directly to the briefing you just performed. This lesson teaches you standard takeoff callouts used by professional operators.

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Chapter 3: Flight Operations

The Lindbergh Reference

For every flying problem in an airplane, there is a solution called "where you look and when you look there". There is no visual reference in a Cessna more powerful than the area I've dubbed "The Lindbergh Reference".

Flow Checks and Checklists

This lesson teaches the difference between checklists and do-lists and how to establish redundancy in a single-pilot environment.

GUMPS

GUMPS is a mnemonic device that covers the critical elements in the before-landing checklist. It should be performed twice before landing.