Pilot Checklists Apps

Checklists have been a part of pilots’ working lives ever since the crash of an early B-17 in 1935. Now other professionals, especially in the field of health care, are adopting checklists as a means to combat forgetfulness. The Pilot Checklists apps allow you to put all the checklists for your favorite airplane in your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad, ready when you need them.

Pilot Checklists—Cessna 152 is the first in a series of apps providing pilot checklists for today’s popular airplanes. As its name implies, the Pilot Checklists—Cessna 152 app comes with the checklists for the Cessna 152 already installed on your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad. Pilot Checklists—Cessna 152 is free.

On May 6, 2010, the Apple store listed Pilot Checklists—Cessna 172S for sale at $7.99. On May 17, the Apple store list Pilot Checklists—Piper Archer II for sale for the same price.

Each Pilot Checklists app provides exactly the same functionality as every other Pilot Checklists app, the only difference being the checklists that come installed with the app. Email me a copy of the Emergency Procedures and Normal Procedures sections of your pilot’s operating handbook (Sections 3 and 4), and I’ll create an app for your airplane. If you wish, you can install the free Pilot Checklists—Cessna 152 app and enter the checklists for any airplane model you want.

The Pilot Checklists apps are not just for pilots. They serve the needs of anyone who needs the functionality of a pilot checklist, regardless of the field in which one works. I would like to hear to what uses you have put the Pilot Checklists apps, and if you have a favorite checklist, especially in the medical field, I would be grateful if you would share it with me so that I can build another Pilot Checklists app around it.

How the Pilot Checklists Apps Work

The Pilot Checklists apps are very simple. They use off-the-shelf widgets from the iPhone SDK (3.0). I designed them for the one purpose for which they are named.

When you launch the app for the first time, the splash screen appears for a few moments, and then the app opens on the table of categories. A category is simply a handy device for containing the checklists that pertain to a given airplane. If you want to create a new category to add to the list, touch the Add Button in the upper right corner of the screen. A view will slide up, giving you the opportunity to type in the name of a new category. If you wish, you may give the new category a color in order to group it with related categories in the table of categories. If you change your mind about creating a category, touch the Cancel Button. When you finish typing the new category’s name and choosing a color, touch the Save Button, and the view will slide back down, revealing the new category at the bottom of the table of categories.

If you wish to delete a category, swipe it or touch the Edit Button and then the editing control at the left side of each entry. Then touch the Delete Button. This will delete the category and all of the checklists associated with the category. To rearrange the categories, touch the Edit Button and then drag the entries into the desired order using the touch locations at the right side of each entry. When you are done, touch the Done Button.

If you delete the category orginally installed with your Pilot Checklists app and wish to restore it, shake the device while viewing the table of categories, and the originally installed category will magically reappear.

If you wish to view the checklists associated with a particular category, touch the category’s entry, and the table of checklists will slide into view. The table of checklists operates exactly the same as the table of categories. To return to the table of categories, touch the Categories Button in the upper left corner of the screen.

If you wish to view the items on a particular checklist, touch the checklist’s entry, and the table of items will slide into view. Touching an entry will cause a checkmark to appear on the right side of the entry. Touching the entry again will cause the checkmark to disappear. To remove all the checkmarks on all the checked entries, touch the Reset Button on the toolbar.

The item entries contain two lines. The first identifies the item of interest—the avionics master switch, the control wheel lock, the flaps, and so on—and the second line identifies the condition that needs to be checked: avionics master switch—OFF.

Contact Information

Please contact me by to pass along additional checklist material or to suggest improvements to the app. Follow product announcements on Twitter (@PilotChecklists).

“Good Day!” . . .

. . . and thank you for your interest in my app.

Stephen S. Ashley
www.n612sp.com/CFI