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3 Answers

Personal checklist on a checkride

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Student Pilot

Our aero club flies 1969 Cessna T-41Cs.  The checklist that the aero club provides in the airplane is an old, spiral bound notebook with many, many pages of large text to flip through, and finding any relevant emergency section quickly is really difficult.  In addition, the order of things is sometimes erroneous or inefficient (for example, sump the fuel is first thing, even though we can't do that yet when it's in the hangar and so it gets easily forgotten).  

To make things easier (and hopefully safer) I made my own checklist which incorporates all of the action items on the club-provided one, but also adds other items (passenger briefing, reference speeds, takeoff briefing, etc.) so they're not accidentally skipped over.  It's formatted to all fit on 2 laminated pages, with all the emergency checklists much more readily at hand.

The question is can I use this on my checkride?  I've had different CFIs mixed on the answer.  Some say yes, others say it has to be an "officially approved" checklist, which sadly means the one that you'll die before you find the right page.  The ACS certification standards just say to use an "appropriate checklist."  Is it just up to the discretion of the DPE?

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3 Answers



  1. KDS on Aug 27, 2022

    Mark me down with the “yes” group.

    However, since anxiety is detrimental to performance, why not give the DPE a call ahead of time and ask his / her view on the subject.

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  2. awair on Aug 28, 2022

    What I heard, and I’m looking for an official source, is:

    1. You can do what you like with Normal checklists.
    2. You must follow the sequence of the manufacturer’s Emergency checklists

    As for reprinting, sizing etc, I don’t see a problem. The ‘official’ copy is often in the AFH, but who uses that?

    If the manufacturer is still contactable, you may also get a letter of “no technical objection” even for a change to Emergency items.

    As an EASA examiner, I’m looking for a safe, well-managed flight. I would caution someone for having their own emergency sequence, but not whatever it’s printed on.

    Good luck, and please post back with your experience

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  3. Russ Roslewski on Aug 30, 2022

    A few comments.

    – Your use of the term “aero club” and flying the T-41, and using those spiral-bound novels as checklists implies to me that you’re flying in a military Aero Club.
    – The military aero clubs typically have lots of additional internal policies, SOPs, and regulations that members often get confused with being FARs.
    – However, if you’re a member of the Aero Club, you presumably agreed to follow whatever those policies are.
    – So if the Aero Club has an SOP stating “you must use the provided checklists”, well there’s your answer. It’s not an FAA requirement, but a club requirement. (Even if it’s not a military aero club, all the above applies anyway with regard to club policies.)

    – What exactly would constitute an “officially approved” checklist anyway? Assuming we’re talking about “approved by the FAA”, for a light GA piston aircraft I think the only checklists that can be considered officially approved are the literal pages from the POH.
    – The checklist included in the airplane is likely no more “officially approved” than the one you made, unless the CFIs are referring to “club approved”, which very well could be.

    – I’ve rented airplanes in the past that did not include a checklist in the plane. You had to bring your own. Pretty logical, really, since provided checklists in rental airplanes tend to go missing, either intentionally or not, as they’re thrown in a flight bag after the flight.

    – Use of personally developed checklists can cause problems. There is even a SAFO on that topic resulting from a gear-up landing (it’s a one-page, quick read):

    https://www.faa.gov/other_visit/aviation_industry/airline_operators/airline_safety/safo/all_safos/media/2017/safo17006.pdf

    – The checklist provided in your airplanes is likely no more “official” than any other personally developed checklist such as the one you made.
    – Even the commercially-available ones like from Checkmate wouldn’t be considered “official” anyway.

    To answer your actual question – yes, you can use your own checklist on the checkride. However, it’s really important to closely compare it to the one in the POH. ESPECIALLY for the checkride. You wouldn’t want to fail a checkride because you forgot to do something that’s on the POH checklist but not on yours, because you didn’t think it important enough to put on there.

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