As abbreviated checklists go, these are perhaps the most fitting for the act you’re about to perform…… My next PPL lesson is stalls, so time to engrave these two checks into memory:
HASELL :
H eight……..Height => Time => Safety
Airframe…..Are the flaps etc. as we want them
Security……No loose articles, everything secure – we’ll have enough to be getting on with without stuff flying into the controls!
Engine………Are the “T’s & P'” (Temperatures & Pressures) in the green, set at the power setting we expect.
Location……Do we know where we are? & Are we clear of built up areas?
Lookout…….Normally done with a 360 turn, no planes coming anywhere near us any time soon are there?
Now given the airframe won’t change (unless something goes very badly wrong) and it’s unlikely things will become unsecured. Future maneuvers can be performed with the abbreviated HELL Check.
Height
Engine
Location
Lookout
……..and then for no good reason other than learning an entry of a stall, close the throttle, lift the nose, watch the speed drop and drop and drop and wait for the stall.
Something for a couple of weekends time from now, the observant reader will notice I said that Stalls are my next Proper Lesson. I say this, because between now and then, I’m booked in to go and do a Night Flight.
If I’ve learnt one thing since starting my PPL training, it’s that all you need is an instructor in the plane and you can pretty much go and try doing anything – to the limits of your current abilities at the time you want to go try it.