Find It by Feel: A Pilot’s Essential Cockpit Lesson

Gain mastery of controls and circuit breakers on the ground before in-flight emergencies.

Meg Godlewski

Tuesday, February 03, 2026 at 08:00 AM ET

Verified

Edited By:

Travis Tingle

It’s important to learn what each circuit breaker does in the cockpit. [Credit: Shutterstock]

Key Takeaways:

Pilots must develop tactile familiarity with all flight controls, switches, and circuit breakers to effectively manage emergencies such as smoke in the cockpit or night operations without visual aid.
This crucial knowledge helps prevent accidents, as demonstrated by a student pilot's crash due to inability to find light switches and the risk of fire from electrical malfunctions or popped circuit breakers.
It is essential for pilots, especially when flying different aircraft, to thoroughly review the specific cockpit layout before each flight and be prepared to immediately pull circuit breakers for any electrical malfunction, including runaway trim or autopilot.

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One of the most important lessons I learned as a student pilot came with my eyes closed.

It was finding the location of the flight controls and circuit breakers in the cockpit, and knowing what each one did. The idea was if the cockpit filled with smoke, or I was caught out at night with no flashlight (highly unlikely for me, but this was training), I would be able to find the throttle, propeller, carburetor heat, and mixture controls by feel, and identify the circuit breakers by their position—for example, “three buttons in from the right is the autopilot.”