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Listen, Cowboy: What You Do Before Takeoff Matters!

Listen, Cowboy: What You Do Before Takeoff Matters!

01/07/2021

Partnering With the Right Avionics Shop is Crucial to Confident Preflight Check



We know you’re good. You can fly the Swiss Alps at night with a compass and a stopwatch – that’s the level of aeronautical precision for which you were trained. You practice approaches on CAVU days and you chair-fly emergency checklists at home between reviewing accident videos and articles in Flying and Professional Pilot. With a yee-haw, we are ready to take on the sky. We all want to be that guy, yet none of us want to be the guy who was all of that, and then made the headlines in a three-page article called “What Went Wrong?”

These reports rarely point to a single point of failure; it’s almost always three strikes before the seasoned hero wrestles the aircraft to the next NTSB campsite where they’ll talk about pilot error while roasting marshmallows. Later, the Feds might find a screw missing, a broken wire, or a cracked something-or-another. They’ll put other heroes in a simulator with the same scenario and watch these pilots make the same mistakes — ultimately pointing to pilot error, as they do.

Realistic pilots know that stuff happens. It’s because we’re superior pilots, we’re always looking for that “gotcha” as soon as we arrive at the airplane. “What will I find in preflight? Which engine will fail on takeoff?” Good questions, good pilot self-talk.

The one question asked after the fact, however, is “what more could I have done?” Pilots have so much time for this question, yet this line of self-talk is often at a moment of regret.

When it comes to pilot talk, after almost 40 years, Leading Edge Avionics has heard it all. New customers sit with us and explain how the other shop had a deal “too good to pass up,” usually followed by “can you guys fix it?” Then we hear so many times that our techs find additional issues such as poor wiring, missing parts, and simply “wow!” (not the good wow).
Finally, we hear pilots coming back, year after year, saying “I’m glad I got it done right.”
Never did a pilot regret a job done right by their trusted avionics partner.

Trust your aircraft to Leading Edge Avionics because you can do more. You can be a better pilot and it starts long before getting into the cockpit. Now is the time for that good pilot self-talk. So when you’re ready for us to join that good-pilot conversation, call or come by. We’re listening and we’ll always be that trusted avionics partner you need in your corner.