Technique - Leave it like you found it

In every avocation, there’s a list of unwritten rules that good practice dictates we follow. In aviation—this brave new world you’re entering—there’s the right way and a wrong way to be a renter, passenger, and/or co-pilot. Whether sharing someone else’s pride and joy or renting the flight school’s Cessna 172, there are “rules” you should live by to be a member in good standing of the aviation community. As AOPA Editor in Chief Tom Haines says of his 1972 Beechcraft Bonanza A36, “Care for it as if it’s your own.”

Illustration by Charles Floyd

After 17 years of owning and flying his aircraft, Haines has tips and advice on how to operate his Bonanza. He asks pilots who use his airplane to read a multiple-page document that includes leaning procedures, engine monitoring, and best power settings, for example.

But that admonishment to leave it as you found it applies to very basic practices, such as cleaning up after yourself. One pilot remembers reaching into the side pocket and discovering—not happily—a banana peel. Yuck. “Put it back like you found it as much as possible,” Haines says.