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The Takeoff Briefing
Think for a moment about everything you need to know or watch out for as you take off. Begin to list everything, and you’ll soon find the list is very long. How many different things do you need to consider before taking off? How can you make certain you don’t miss anything?
Everyone uses (or should use) checklists to ensure they have not forgotten anything prior to takeoff. Pilot’s Operating Handbook (POH) or Airplane Flight Manual (AFM) checklists cover the hardware considerations, that is, making certain everything is configured properly before beginning the takeoff roll. Professional flight crews also use a pre-takeoff briefing to cover the “software” considerations: the pilot decision- making process that accompanies takeoff. What are the unique hazards affecting takeoff? What performance expectations apply to this departure? How will you know if you’re not getting the performance you need? What are the routes and altitudes to get you from the airport into the en route structure? Under the specific current circumstances, what will you do in the event of an emergency?
I’ve tried for years to come up with a quick, concise pre- takeoff briefing. I queried friends in the airline, corporate and military to see what they used, in the hopes I could apply it to
my flying. All of the pre-takeoff briefing checklists I found were highly complex, not the sort of thing I thought we could adapt for single-pilot training and encourage pilots to enthusiastically incorporate into their everyday flying. So how could I develop an easy, single-pilot friendly pre-takeoff briefing checklist?
Ask an Instructor
Or in this case, a room full of instructors. I could have come up with a checklist on my own, but I’d vastly prefer to have something that benefits from the input of many experienced instructor pilots. So, I put a breakout-group exercise, developing a pre-takeoff briefing checklist, on the agenda of the American Bonanza Society’s ABS Beechcraft Instructor Crosstalk last August. I challenged the instructors in breakout groups to create a pre-takeoff briefing checklist that is usable and concise—consisting of no more than seven checklist steps. Their faces told me they thought this would be a challenge indeed.
by Thomas P. Turner
6 • TWIN & TURBINE
March 2019
PHOTO BY DIANNE WHITE