Flight deck management, starting, and the taxi
The passenger briefing the regulation requires, checklists and cargo, the engine start in cold and heat, and the taxi at night, in low visibility, and when ATC changes the plan.
16 min read · Commercial operations
After this lesson you can
- Brief passengers as 14 CFR 91.107 requires, and say what the regulation demands of the pilot before taxi, takeoff and landing.
- Use checklists and secure items and cargo so that the flight deck is set before the engine turns.
- Start the engine within its limits: rpm after start, oil pressure, starter duty, and what changes when it is cold.
- Taxi at night and in low visibility without a runway incursion, and recognize expectation bias in a taxi instruction.
- Handle a runway change from ATC and a wake turbulence hazard before takeoff.
Everything in this lesson happens before the airplane leaves the ground, and most of it happens with the engine off. That is exactly why it matters on a commercial flight: the passengers form their impression of the pilot in these minutes, and the accident record forms many of its entries here too, on the ramp and the taxiway rather than in the air.
The Airplane Flying Handbook treats the preflight as a sequence with a purpose behind every item, and this lesson keeps that shape: brief, set up, start, taxi, and check before takeoff, with the risk the ACS attaches to each step named where it bites.
The rest of this lesson
- 1.The passenger briefing: what 91.107 requires
- 2.Checklists, and everything that can move
- 3.Automation and portable electronics in the flight deck
- 4.Starting the engine: the limits the handbook states
- 5.Taxiing at night and in low visibility
- 6.Expectation bias, and the taxi route that changed
- 7.Before takeoff: the runway that changed and the wake ahead of you
These 7 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.