A Post What?

Quite often after the flight has ended and the airplane parked, many pilots don’t even give the airplane a second glance. Except for the obviously underinflated tire there isn’t much some pilots notice or do when they walk into the FBO. And that’s unfortunate! Because not conducting a good post flight inspection is a disservice to both yourself and the next pilot who flies the airplane. What if you missed the huge gash in the nose wheel tire, how would you feel then?

Whether you’re a renter pilot or an owner, you owe it to yourself to check over the airplane one last time before you button it up for the day. You’ll save a lot of time and aggravation by looking for things like inoperative exterior nav, beacon and strobe lights, or tires for under inflation or tires with irregular wear or flat spots. What about popper circuit breakers, or perhaps the oil dripping from under the cowl? What about the cowl plugs, missing screws from inspection plates or a cracked muffler? You don’t have to get out the magnifying glass and play Sherlock Holmes, but by all means look the airplane over after the airplane is tied down or hangared. These are all usually easily detectible problems, if you’ll just take a few extra minutes and give the airplane one final look. In all my years of flying I’ve found many post flight discrepancies that could have easily caused significant flight delays or cancellations, but didn’t, because they were caught early. Isn’t it a huge disappointment when you don’t have an airplane available for that all important business meeting, or when you’re counting on that one airplane for that very special trip, a discrepancy can be the difference between a go, or no-go decision. You might be grounded. Yeah you might consider things like taking off with an inoperative nav light, because you’re way behind schedule and maintenance can’t look at it. But what if day turns into night? You become a whole lot less visible to other aircraft. Not a good idea.

Call it preventive medicine. Call it peace of mind. Post flights are important. And one final note. If you fly an airplane primarily used for flight training, remember that that these airplanes get a whole lot more wear and tear than your typical cross country travel machine, so scrutinize the airplane carefully after you land. Bottom line, post flight inspections are a good idea. They can save you a lot of aggravation, and wouldn’t that be nice.

Enjoy your flight,

Jeff

Jeff Sponberg is a CFI and Part 135 pilot flying in the New England region.