Pre-flight step 1: Put gas in the plane. This is an important one. Here we see airport employee Grant Richardson adding 13.1 gallons of airplane gasoline to one of the plane’s wing tanks.
(JON BODELL / Insider staff)
Pre-flight Step 2: Untie the plane, the way pilot Carole Gadois is doing here. It’s important to always secure the plane to the ground once it has landed – these things are meant to take flight, and a little gust of wind can send an aircraft a long way (which you don’t want) – and equally important to detach the tie-downs before attempting a takeoff. Failure to do so will keep you grounded.
(JON BODELL / Insider staff)
Pre-flight Step 3: Here’s where we really start to condense things. In this step, pilot Carole Gadois checks that no water has gotten mixed into the fuel. The gas has a bluish tint, so if you see any clear, that's how you know you have a problem. This is one of many pre-flight checklist items the pilot goes through before every takeoff. Since there are many, many steps in this process, we just showed you one of the more photogenic ones.
(JON BODELL / Insider staff)
Pre-flight Step 4: Once the pre-flight checklist is complete, it's time for the walkaround. This step is exactly what you think it is -- the pilot (in this case Carole Gadois) walks around the plane one last time, looking for any obvious signs of trouble.
(JON BODELL / Insider staff)
Pre-flight Step 5: Though not explicitly required, pilot Carole Gadois likes to give the plane a nice hug before hopping inside. Seems like a good idea to us.
(JON BODELL / Insider staff)
Pre-flight Step 6: Before getting airborne, the pilot checks all the manual controls on the ground -- you'd hate to get up to 10,000 feet to discover the flaps don't work.
(JON BODELL / Insider staff)
Pre-flight Step 7: Accumulate maximum speed across the runway until liftoff is achieved. Here we see the point of “rotation,” which is the moment the front wheels come off the ground and the plane begins to take flight. The smaller and lighter the plane, the less runway is required to take off. Since this is quite a light aircraft, it was off the ground after only about 1,000 feet.
(JON BODELL / Insider staff)
Pre-flight Step 8: Pull up and start flying! From start to finish, Gadois nailed the routine perfectly and was flying like a pro in no time. Big thanks to her and airport manager Dave Rolla for letting us document the process from up close.
(JON BODELL / Insider staff)
There are many things a pilot needs to do before taking off. There’s an extensive list of parts, gauges, fluids and functions that need to be checked every time a flight is planned, and it can be a fairly time-consuming process. Since we only have a limited amount of space in our paper (and a limited number of hours we’re allowed to work each week), we’ve summed it all up in a handful of easy-to-remember steps.
