Emergency equipment and survival gear
The ELT and its limits, survival equipment chosen from the route, and the two systems that fly the airplane when the pilot cannot - with the passenger briefings a commercial operation owes.
13 min read · The complex airplane
After this lesson you can
- State what 14 CFR 91.207 requires of an ELT and what the annual inspection actually checks.
- Decide survival equipment from climate, terrain and water rather than from a generic list.
- Say when a ballistic parachute is deployed, and what a paying passenger must be told before the flight.
- Describe what an emergency autoland system does once activated, and the four things it cannot do.
A commercial pilot carries people who did not choose the equipment, did not read the POH, and will not know where anything is. That changes this subject from a personal one into a briefing obligation: every system in this lesson has a passenger-facing half that the private certificate treats as optional and the commercial standard does not.
The Airman Certification Standards for the commercial certificate list emergency equipment and survival gear as a task in its own right, including the two systems that have arrived in ordinary airplanes in the last decade.
The rest of this lesson
- 1.The ELT: what the regulation actually demands
- 2.Survival equipment: choose it from the route
- 3.Ballistic parachute: a deliberate write-off
- 4.Emergency autoland, and what it will not do for you
- 5.Deciding to use the autoland: the risk side
These 5 sections, their figures, the checks along the way and the end-of-lesson quiz come with the CPL track. Paid once, yours for good.
Key terms
Try to recall each definition before turning the card.