Post-Flight Checks Can Expedite the Preflight Process

A longtime contributor and pilot illustrates why it's important to make the end of one flight the start of another.

Peter Garrison

Thursday, January 13, 2022 at 11:46 AM ET

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Looking to mitigate a problem? It helps to start the process after your previous flight. [Courtesy: Peter Garrison]

Key Takeaways:

The article highlights the inefficiency of traditional preflight inspections, as discovering an issue (like the author's faulty spark plug) right before a planned flight leads to delays or cancellations.
To address this, the author proposes a new routine: conducting engine run-ups, mag checks, and P-lead continuity checks at the *end* of a flight.
This "post-flight" check allows pilots to identify problems proactively, giving them time to resolve issues before the next scheduled departure.

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The other day I was reminded, once again, of the trouble with a preflight inspection: When you find something wrong, it’s too late to do anything about it.

I was doing my routine run-up. My homebuilt’s quaint touches include a toggle switch for each mag. When I clicked the left switch to “off,” the rpms dropped by several hundred, and the engine ran rough. Usually I see mag drops of just 50 or 75 rpm, so this was disconcerting. I went through the usual fouled-plug routine of running up to high power, leaning the mixture, and verbally encouraging the offending plug to clean itself out. When I repeated the mag check, however, nothing had changed.