Cessna 172 Skyhawk Checklist

What the Cessna 172 Skyhawk is

The Cessna 172 Skyhawk is the most-produced aircraft in history — a four-seat, single-engine, high-wing airplane built continuously since 1956. It is the airplane most American pilots learn to fly in, and the one most rental fleets are built around. A high-wing layout with fixed tricycle gear and forgiving handling is exactly what makes it a durable trainer: predictable in the stall, easy to see over the nose on landing, and stable enough to leave alone while a student reads a checklist. The modern fleet is split between two families. Older carbureted models (the 172M, N, and P from the 1970s and 80s) run a 150 to 160 hp Lycoming O-320 with a float carburetor and a carb-heat control. The current fuel-injected line — the 172R and the 180 hp 172S Skyhawk SP — drops the carburetor entirely for a Lycoming IO-360, which changes the start flow and removes carb heat from the checklist completely. Panels range from full steam gauges to the Garmin G1000. Who flies it: student pilots and their instructors, renters building time, flying clubs, and owners who want a straightforward cross-country machine. This template centers on the fuel-injected 172R/S; if you fly a carbureted M/N/P, your start procedure and your carb-heat steps will be different, and you should build from that model’s POH.

I did most of my early training in a 172S at KLVK, so this is the checklist I know best. I kept the flow to what I actually run in the airplane — fuel-injected start, no carb heat, four fuel drains — and left the carbureted variants out on purpose rather than blend two different start procedures. Print it, add your tail number, and fly the numbers in your own POH, not mine.

Normal procedures

The normal side runs the way you actually fly the airplane, phase by phase: a cabin-first preflight and walkaround, before-start, the fuel-injected engine start (mixture, throttle crack, aux pump prime — there is no carb heat to check), taxi, run-up and before-takeoff, takeoff with separate normal and short/soft-field notes, climb, cruise, descent, before-landing, after-landing, and shutdown and securing. A 172S-typical V-speed table rides at the end so rotate, climb, glide, and approach numbers stay on one card. The type-specific habits it keeps in front of you are the ones a generic “Cessna” printout tends to drop: the fuel-injected start sequence, all four fuel drains, and the fact that a 172R/S has no carb-heat line at all.

Emergency procedures

The emergency and abnormal section is deliberately conservative, with the reflex memory items printed in bold so they stand out from the read-and-verify steps. It covers engine failure on the takeoff roll, engine failure after takeoff at low altitude (best glide, land straight ahead within about 30 degrees, no turn-back below roughly 1,000 feet AGL), engine failure in flight with a structured restart attempt and a forced-landing branch, engine fire in flight, electrical fire in flight, and a low-voltage/alternator abnormal handled as monitor-and-manage rather than a memory reflex. These flows are a training aid built from widely published procedure steps — the “increase airspeed to blow out the fire” line in particular is common in training material but was not confirmed against a primary 172 POH excerpt. Treat the whole section as something you verify against your aircraft’s approved POH and brief with your instructor, not as gospel.

Verify it against your POH

The research behind this template flagged a few things that genuinely vary by model, serial, and operator. Check these against your aircraft’s approved POH before you rely on the card:

• V-speeds for carbureted M/N/P models. The speed table here is the source-confirmed 172S set. The lower-powered carbureted models have lower gross weights and slightly different speeds — pull them from that model’s own POH.
• Best-glide speed. For carbureted 172s this is commonly cited around 65 KIAS but varies with weight; confirm the exact number for your airframe.
• “Controls free and correct” placement. Some operators run this at run-up, some before taxi, some both. Put it where your POH and your instructor put it.
• Stall-warning horn check. Whether the powered horn check (master ON, lift the vane, listen) is an official POH step or a school-added supplement isn’t settled — treat it as an operator supplement unless your POH lists it.
• “Increase airspeed to blow out the fire” in the engine-fire flow appears widely in training material but wasn’t confirmed in a primary 172 POH excerpt; treat it as standard practice, not gospel.
• Short/soft-field flap settings (10° vs 0°) and technique were taken from POH-derived training material, not re-verified line-by-line against a specific 172S POH page.