← All explained questions · Supplemental · II — Preflight Procedures
A pilot intends to fly the same aircraft she flew yesterday. The aircraft has not been moved or fueled since. Per regulation and best practice, the pilot should
Choices
skip preflight — yesterday's preflight is still valid.
Skipping preflight is unsafe and not condoned by any regulation or best practice.
✓ perform a full preflight inspection.correct
Aircraft can be tampered with, leak overnight, develop bird/insect issues, or be mistakenly worked on; preflight is per-flight, not per-day. Preflight is per-flight, not per-day. Overnight risks: oil leaks, fuel contamination from temperature changes, bird/insect ingress (pitot, static, vents), maintenance work that wasn't communicated, tire deflation, hangar damage from another aircraft. The 5 minutes saved is never worth the risk.
only check the fuel level.
Fuel alone misses dozens of failure modes.
do an abbreviated walk-around looking only at obvious problems.
Abbreviated walk-around is asking for trouble.
Why
Aircraft can be tampered with, leak overnight, develop bird/insect issues, or be mistakenly worked on; preflight is per-flight, not per-day. Preflight is per-flight, not per-day. Overnight risks: oil leaks, fuel contamination from temperature changes, bird/insect ingress (pitot, static, vents), maintenance work that wasn't communicated, tire deflation, hangar damage from another aircraft. The 5 minutes saved is never worth the risk.
FAA source: FAA-H-8083-3C, AFH Ch. 2, preflight visual inspectionbrowse the reference library →
Original study question written for this course — representative of FAA knowledge-test topics, not an actual current FAA exam question.