Ah yes, the plane looks good to fly... sure?

Cockpit Briefing

Before every single flight, I walk once around the airplane. Slowly, with my eyes and my hands. It’s called the walk-around (or pre-flight check), and it’s the last chance to find a problem while you’re still standing safely on the ground. Here’s why it matters and how I do it.

The Moment

You arrive at the airfield, the sun is out, the airplane is waiting in front of the hangar. Everything in you says: let’s go! And that’s exactly the moment to slow down.

An airplane doesn’t tell you when something is wrong. A car might make a funny noise or light up a warning. An airplane parked on the apron just stands there looking innocent. Maybe a bird built a nest in the engine cowling overnight. Maybe someone bumped a wingtip while moving it in the hangar. Maybe the pitot cover is still on or any other “remove before flight”-hanger. You only find out if you look.

The Lesson

Every aircraft type has its own checklist in the manual, and that checklist always wins. But the idea is always the same: start at one point, walk around the airplane in one direction, and don’t skip anything. This is roughly how I do it:

1. The big picture. Before touching anything, I take a few steps back and just look. Does the airplane stand straight? Are both tyres equally inflated, or is it leaning to one side? Is there oil or fuel dripping underneath? Are covers and tie-downs removed? Does it simply look right? This sounds almost too simple, but your eye is surprisingly good at noticing when something is off.

2. The leading edges. Then I run my eyes, and my hand, along the leading edges of the wings and the tail. That’s the front edge that cuts through the air first. Dents, cracks, loose rivets or even a thick layer of bugs can change how the air flows over the wing, and that’s what keeps us flying.

3. The control surfaces. Ailerons, elevator, rudder, flaps: I move each one by hand and check that it moves freely and fully, without strange noises or play. I also look at the hinges, the bolts and the safety pins. And then the classic: I check that they move in the right direction when I move the controls in the cockpit. Stick left, left aileron up. It happens rarely, but a wrongly connected control after maintenance is exactly the kind of thing you don’t want to discover in the air.

4. Pitot tube and static ports. The pitot tube is a small tube, usually under the wing, that measures the airspeed. If it’s blocked by its cover, an insect or water, the airspeed indicator shows nonsense, and that’s the number I need most for takeoff and landing. So: cover off, opening clean. Same for the static ports, the small holes on the side of the fuselage that feed the altimeter.

5. Fuel and oil. I check the fuel quantity with my own eyes in the tanks, not only on the gauge. Then I drain a small fuel sample from each drain point and look for water or dirt. Water is heavier than fuel, so it collects at the bottom and shows up as little bubbles in the sample. Oil level on the dipstick, and cap closed properly.

6. Propeller, engine and landing gear. Propeller free of nicks and cracks, nothing loose in the engine compartment, tyres, brakes and the nose gear in good shape.

7. The last round. Lights, antennas, doors, and one final look: nothing left on the wing, nothing forgotten on the ground. Is the ground wire after fueling disconnected? What do you think when looking at the following picture? 😉

The Personal Part

At the beginning, the walk-around felt like a long list of boxes to tick. Today it’s one of my favourite parts of the day. It’s a small ritual: it slows me down, it gets my head from “work day” into “flying mode”, and I get to know the airplane I’m about to trust.

And honestly, it just feels more comfortable to take off knowing that every part moved the way it should. When I line up on the runway, there’s no little voice in my head asking “did I check the ailerons?”. I did. With my own hands. That’s a very good feeling.

I learned this habit already as a glider pilot, where the daily inspection is just as serious. Different airplane, same idea: you only trust what you checked.

One Takeaway

The walk-around takes about fifteen minutes. The confidence it gives you lasts the whole flight. Look, touch, move… and only then fly.