The owner-pilot trip-planning checklist — from week-out to engine-start.

Practical workflow guide. Not a regulatory document. Verify currency, FPL requirements, and operational rules against the AIP and the regulator that governs your operation before any flight.

A trip in an owner-pilot’s life is rarely a single VFR leg of an hour. It’s three to five days. Two co-pilots, three non-pilot passengers. Two aircraft. A return leg with a different weight, possibly a different route. The bottleneck is rarely the flight planning; it’s the people-and-time logistics around the flight planning. This guide is the cadence that works.

Two weeks out: aircraft availability, ARC + medical + currency

Two weeks before a multi-day trip is when the airframe and pilot questions need to be settled.

Aircraft side. Check that the ARC is not expiring during or shortly after the trip. Check the AMP triggers — any major maintenance falling inside the trip window. Confirm no open AD is restricting operation. Confirm the engine and propeller component times leave you headroom for the trip’s expected hours plus margin. If you’re flying with co-owners, check their bookings to make sure the aircraft is yours for the dates.

Pilot side. Currency for the operation: 90-day passenger currency, 6-month night currency if any leg is night, IFR currency if any leg is IFR. Medical valid through the trip dates. Licence ratings cover the airspace you’ll fly through.

Insurance side. If you’re carrying named passengers (vs general “passenger” coverage), confirm the policy covers them. If you’re flying outside your usual geography, confirm the geography is covered.

Airworth Hangar surfaces the airframe-side items on the dashboard. Currency, medical, and insurance live in the document vault for the airframe and in your personal records.

One week out: route, alternates, fuel

Route and alternates are when the trip’s operational shape comes together.

Route. Build the multi-leg trip. For each leg: departure aerodrome, arrival aerodrome, alternate(s), expected ETD, expected ETE, fuel-on-board at takeoff, fuel-on-arrival expected, alternate fuel reserves. For VFR legs, route through useful visual references; for IFR legs, file a routing that ATC will accept (avoid heroic direct-to-DCT requests through controlled airspace where ATC will reroute).

Alternates. Pick alternates that have fuel, are open during your arrival window, and are within reasonable distance. For VFR, an alternate within 30 minutes’ flying is a comfortable cushion. For IFR, the regulatory alternate-required calculation applies; verify against the relevant AIP.

Fuel. Confirm fuel availability at departure, arrivals, and alternates. Some FBOs require advance notice for fuel orders, especially on weekends. Email the FBOs ahead.

In Airworth Flights, the multi-leg trip with alternates lives as a structured object. Distance, ETE, and fuel calculate against the aircraft you’ve configured (Haversine distance, R = 3440.065 NM). Fuel-type compatibility checks against the destinations.

Three days out: weather windows, NOTAMs sweep

Three days out is when weather and NOTAMs become predictive enough to act on.

Weather windows. The TAF for major aerodromes is reliable inside 24 hours, useful out to 36; beyond that, the area forecasts and synoptic models tell you the trend. Look for the day-and-time blocks that are go-quality, the blocks that are no-go-quality, and where the marginal blocks fall. Build the trip’s flexibility around the marginal windows.

NOTAMs sweep. First pass: any en-route NOTAMs that affect the corridors you’re planning. Second pass: any NOTAMs at the aerodromes you’re using. Third pass: any NOTAMs at the aerodromes you might divert to.

For deep methodology on NOTAM filtering, see NOTAM filtering by leg and time window. For Spain-specific weather sources, see VFR flight planning in Spain.

Day before: weight and balance, passenger briefing, packing list

Day before is when the operational details lock.

Weight and balance. Compute for each leg with the actual passengers, bags, and fuel. Verify within envelope. If the return leg has a different load (different passengers, bags collected), do the return W&B too. Save the calculation.

Passenger briefing. The crew brief: phones to airplane mode at engine start, smoke-free, sterile cockpit during taxi/takeoff/approach/landing, what to do if the door pops, what to do if you need to use the relief tube. The trip-context brief: ETD, expected ETA, fuel stop locations, what to do at each stop, what to wear if it’s cold at altitude.

Packing list. The aviation kit: headset, kneeboard, current charts, current AIP excerpts, aircraft documents, pilot documents, sunglasses. The trip kit: passport for international, phone chargers, stop-gap supplies. The aircraft kit: oil for the trip, tow bar, gust lock, chocks if no tie-downs at destinations.

In Flights, the packing list with categories, user-assignment, bag tracking, and reusable templates handles the trip-and-aircraft kit. For repeat trips, the template gets reused.

Day of: METAR/TAF, file FPL, fuel order, departure

The day-of routine is the standard sequence.

1. METAR/TAF for departure, destination, alternate — current, last cycle.
2. Final NOTAM check for the leg you’re flying first.
3. Fuel order confirmation at the destination if you’ve ordered.
4. W&B verification if anything has changed since yesterday.
5. FPL filed if required.
6. Pilot pre-flight — your standard sequence, no shortcuts.
7. Passenger boarding — brief recap, seatbelts, doors.
8. Engine start.

Trip companions: bringing your passengers into the loop

Non-pilot passengers don’t need to learn aviation. They do need to know what’s happening, where they fit, and how to be useful.

Trip companions on Airworth Flights is the surface for this. The packing lists are visible to every trip member. The day notes (timestamped, icon-tagged, drag-drop reorderable) capture the on-the-ground itinerary. The group chat replaces the WhatsApp group everyone forgets to update. Vacay tracks vacation-day budgets across the group; Atlas gives the group a visited-countries map after the trip is over.

The pilot’s side stays in the cockpit; the passengers’ side is on their phones.

Post-flight: hours into Hangar, fuel into expenses

The trip isn’t over until the post-flight bookkeeping is done.

Hours. Log the flight in the aircraft logbook the day of the flight, ideally within an hour of shutdown. In Hangar, every flight you log recomputes component times. The longer the flight goes unlogged, the more out of sync the dashboard is.

Fuel. Receipt photographed, expense entered, currency converted if international. Hangar’s Cost Ledger ingests this with AI categorisation; bank CSV import handles bulk reconciliation later.

Squawks. Anything you noticed: oil consumption higher than baseline, intermittent radio, slight propeller vibration. Log them as defects even if you’re not sure. Future-you will thank present-you.

Trip closeout. PDF export of the trip from Flights for the personal record. Trip companions get the Atlas update (countries visited, photos uploaded).

For the surrounding regulatory context on logging compliance, see Part-ML compliance for owner-pilots and EASA vs FAA maintenance recordkeeping.