Pre-Pre Flight

(home charging and night before checklists)

The tech I use in the cockpit has gotten complicated enough, I’ve actually come up with my own pre-pre flight checklist (and an associated checklist for when I’m leaving the [rental] plane, so I don’t, e.g., forget my GPS unit shoved up under the windshield). Following this at least a few hours before the flight makes sure everything’s loaded, charged, and working. I recommend setting up something similar.

At home, I have a ‘charging station’ setup, with:

• Anker PowerPort 5 40W 5-Port USB Charging Hub ($20). Everything plugs into this to recharge. Seemed to be the best bang for the buck, and it’s well reviewed (5 stars, >2000 reviews).
• Anker [5-Pack] Premium Micro USB cables ($10). Charges the battery packs, Logitech keyboard, etc.
• Cable Matters Mini-B USB Cables ($8). Charges the GPS unit and the GoPro.
• Anker Lightning Cable ($6). MFi-certified. Charges the iPad mini 2.

The checklist ensures:

• Everything’s charged;
• The GoPro has been reformatted¹
• ForeFlight has been “packed” with current charts, weather, TFRs and other NOTAMs, etc, on both my iPad and my iPhone (as a backup);
• Everything I expect to be in my flight bag (especially things that might have wandered off: sunglasses, watch, flashlights...) is in there.

¹ For some reason, when I don’t do this, I often find it stops recording after a few moments... Freshly formatted and with a good charge on its internal battery and the Poweradd Slim2, and it’s good for hours of reliable filming.