Our Checklist Creator

If you are not religiously using checklists when flying (an airplane as a pilot), you are asking for trouble. When you were working on your private pilot certificate, your instructor likely was always on your case to use the checklist, and if your instructor didn’t do that, they didn’t do you any favors. Because checklists are so essential, we created a tool that allows you to quickly and easily create your own checklist.

We strongly believe in always backing up flows and informal checklists with actual checklists. GUMPS is fine, but we don’t believe it should be used instead of a proper checklist.

Step-By-Step

1. Create your checklist. You can modify one of the examples, or you can start from scratch. Simply add, remove, and change the text in the textbox.
2. Preview your checklist below. As you change the text in the textbox, the checklist will be previewed below the textbox.
3. Export or print your checklist. Once you are happy with your checklist, you can click the “” button, which will open a new window. You can then simply “print” the page and save it as PDF or print it. You can use the print preferences to choose the layout that best works for you. You may need to modify the text of the checklist to accommodate page breaks (using — PAGEBREAK — in the textbox).
4. Copy the checklist text and save it on your computer or phone as paintext so that you can modify it in the future.

Formatting

Here is an overview of all the ways you can format your checklist.

The title of the checklist, is always the first line (e.g. Skyhawk 172)

Section headings have three leading dashes (e.g. --- After Landing)

Place - PAGEBREAK - into your checklist text wherever you want a pagebreak for printing or exporting

To bold text place a [B] around text (e.g. Weight & Balance --- [B]COMPLETE[B])

To color text red place [RED] around text (e.g. Hobbs & Tach Time --- [RED]NOTED[RED])

To color text blue place [BLUE] around text (e.g. Thrust Reversers --- [BLUE]TESTED[BLUE])

To create a legend item you can use [LEGEND-BLUE] or [LEGEND-RED] followed by the text you want (e.g. [LEGEND-RED] RED are EMER memory items.)

Saving

Simply select the text in the text area, the text you created for your checklist, and save it on your computer or on your phone.

Special Features and Usage

Aside from adding the ability to format your own checklist, we also added a “CHECKLIST VERSION” to the checklist. This allows you to easily compare your checklist to another checklist to ensure you’ve got matching checklists — kind of like when you brief an approach plate and confirm you’re using the same plate as the other pilot.