A checkride binder is the stack of paper you carry into the practical test: normal and emergency checklists for the airplane, a page of the items you personally keep forgetting, the day’s weather and NOTAM brief, the airport diagram and chart supplement page for the checkride airport, and a weight and balance run for the actual airplane and people flying. I built mine the week before my private pilot checkride, in a couple of hours I’d have spent studying. Here’s what went in it and how to build yours.
Why I built one instead of buying one
I earned my private certificate in a Cessna 172 out of Livermore (KLVK), and this tool exists because of a small, stubborn frustration from training. The checklists I could buy were fine, genuinely, but never in my format. The order wasn’t how my instructor taught me. The spacing was cramped. The items I kept forgetting weren’t called out anywhere. So I started making the checklists I actually wanted on my kneeboard, and by checkride week a binder was the obvious next step.
I wasn’t trying to make anything impressive that night. I wanted the checkride to feel like a normal flight, and a binder gets you most of the way there: everything you might reach for is in one place, in the order you’d reach for it, so you’re never rifling through a flight bag with an examiner watching.
What went in mine
Everything printed on half-letter (A5) pages in clear sleeves, small enough for a kneeboard and sturdy enough for a sweaty-palmed day. The core was my own 172 checklist by phase of flight, plus one honest addition: the items I tended to forget. Not the textbook killer items everyone lists. My misses, the ones my instructor had caught me on twice. Seeing them on the page in my own words did more for me than a fourth pass through the POH.
After the checklists came a printed chart supplement page and the airport diagram for the checkride airport, so taxi instructions and field information weren’t something to fish for on a tablet. I also made a safety briefing card for the 172, the short passenger and emergency brief I’d give before takeoff, because saying it out loud from a card steadied me on the day. When the examiner asked, I wasn’t improvising. I read what I’d already thought through the night before.
None of it was clever, which is the point. A binder just removes the small frictions that eat the attention you’d rather spend flying the airplane.
Build your own checkride binder
You don’t need my binder. You need yours, matched to your airplane, your airport, and the things you tend to forget. This is a generic starting point, common prep practice rather than a rule, so confirm the specifics with your instructor.
- Aircraft normal checklists. Before-start through shutdown, by phase of flight so it mirrors how you fly. Short sections, challenge on the left, response on the right. The design reasoning is in how to build a checklist for your aircraft.
- Aircraft emergency and abnormal items. Separate from the normal flow, with the true immediate-action memory items made visually distinct so they never blend into read-and-verify steps.
- A personal weak-spot list. The handful of items you miss, the ones your instructor keeps catching. Highest-value page in the binder, and the one you can’t buy.
- A weather and NOTAM briefing page. A clean spot to write the day’s brief: winds, ceilings, TAF trend, NOTAMs for your airport and route. Pull it from an official source the morning of.
- The airport diagram and a chart supplement page. For the checkride airport, so taxi layout, frequencies, and field information are on paper, readable at a glance.
- Weight and balance. Run for the actual airplane and the actual people flying, not a generic example. Keep the source numbers with it, because an examiner will ask where they came from.
The oral happens before you touch the airplane, so a tab of study notes belongs in the same binder. What DPEs actually ask organizes that prep by ACS area of operation.
Keep the approved POH/AFM in the airplane where it belongs. Everything in the binder is a memory aid derived from it, and every item should match the official procedures rather than contradict them. When your binder and the current POH disagree, the POH wins. The FAA handbooks, the ACS, and the weather and chart sources I used are collected free on the student pilot hub.
How this tool helps you build one
Small role by design: it makes the pages.
- Print at half-letter or A5. The same compact kneeboard size I used, not a full sheet of paper folded in half.
- Custom sections in your order. Add the phases you fly, drop the ones you don’t, and put your weak-spot list right where you’ll see it.
- Your own phrasing. Write the items the way your instructor taught you and the way you’ll actually read them at 1,000 feet, not the way a generic PDF happened to word them.
Fly a Skyhawk or a Cherokee and the Cessna 172 checklist or the PA-28 checklist is a sensible starting point to customize. Change everything you want and print it.
It’s free forever for personal use, and I keep it that way on purpose. Any donations go toward my instrument rating and keeping the site online.
Common questions
What should be in a checkride binder?
Most students build a binder around a few core pieces: the aircraft's normal and emergency checklists, a personal weak-spot list of the items they tend to forget, a weather and NOTAM briefing page for the day, the airport diagram and a chart supplement page for the checkride airport, and a weight-and-balance sheet for the actual airplane and people flying. Keep the approved POH aboard too — the binder is a memory aid built from it, not a replacement.
Do I need a checklist for my checkride, or is the POH enough?
The approved POH/AFM has to be in the airplane regardless. A checklist is the working memory aid you run in the cockpit so your head isn't buried in the book at a busy moment. Many pilots build their own checklist from the POH procedures so it's in a format they can actually read on a kneeboard, then verify every item against the current POH before they fly.
Can I use my own custom checklist on a checkride?
Practices vary by examiner and by instructor, so confirm with your CFI and your DPE ahead of time. What's consistent is that a custom checklist should be derived faithfully from your aircraft's approved POH/AFM, the approved manual still has to be aboard, and your checklist should match — not contradict — the official procedures. When in doubt, verify against the POH and ask.
What's the difference between a checkride binder and a checklist?
The checklist is one piece — the challenge-and-response items you run by phase of flight. The binder is the whole package you bring to the checkride: checklists plus your weak-spot list, the weather brief, the airport diagram, a chart supplement page, and weight and balance, usually in half-letter or A5 sleeves so it's compact on a kneeboard.
How should I organize a checkride checklist?
By phase of flight, mirroring how you actually fly: preflight, before start, before taxi, before takeoff, climb, cruise, descent, before landing, after landing, shutdown, with emergency and abnormal items held separately. Keep each section short enough to take in at a glance, make the killer items obvious, and cross-check every line against your POH.