Diamond DA40 Diamond Star Checklist

What the Diamond DA40 Diamond Star is

Four seats, one engine, low wing, fixed gear, and a glass-composite airframe instead of aluminum, which is where the long tapered wings and the bubble canopy come from. Around since 2000, mostly at university flight programs, and a steady G1000 platform for instrument students. This checklist covers the Lycoming line: the DA40-180 plus the XL, XLS, and CS, all with the fuel-injected 180 hp Lycoming IO-360, 100LL, and a constant-speed prop. Do not use it for the diesel DA40 NG, which runs an Austro turbodiesel on Jet-A through a single FADEC power lever with no mixture and no prop control. Coming from a Cessna, three things change on day one: the fuel selector reads LEFT, RIGHT, OFF with no BOTH, an “alternate air” induction door stands in for carb heat, and there are three fuel drains instead of two.

The DA40 is what I point people at when they want something modern and honest to fly. I built this checklist around the Lycoming DA40-180 because that is what most schools rent, and I kept the no-BOTH fuel selector, the alternate-air door, and the canopy latches up front, because those are what catch Cessna pilots. Print it, add your tail number, and fly the numbers in your own POH.

Normal procedures

Preflight and walkaround through shutdown and securing in the usual order, plus a table of DA40 V-speeds. Three type-specific items ride up front: actively balancing the LEFT and RIGHT tanks within the imbalance limit, the alternate-air door, and the canopy and rear-door latch checks. The start flow also has you confirm the opposite tank actually feeds.

Emergency procedures

Memory items are in bold. Engine failure on the roll, after takeoff, and in flight with a restart attempt; a power-off landing when nothing restarts; engine fire; electrical fire or smoke; alternator and total electrical failure; plus three DA40 abnormals (door or canopy open in flight, unintentional icing, a defective main tire). The engine-fire flow follows the sourced operator checklists, which defer fuel and ignition cutoff until landing is assured, so nothing in it is marked as a memory item. Built from operator checklists, not the AFM, so walk the steps and the memory items past a CFI with your POH open.

Verify it against your POH

These vary by variant, serial, and source. Check them before you fly the checklist:

• Lycoming line, not the diesel NG. Every fuel, mixture, and alternate-air step assumes the injected IO-360; the NG’s FADEC lever changes all of it.
• Engine-fire sequencing. Sources defer fuel and ignition cutoff until landing is assured. Confirm your type’s sequence and its memory items with a CFI.
• V-speeds, Vx especially. The table is DA40-180-representative; the two sources differ (2015 mass-banded versus 2024 single-figure). Vx appeared in only one, and Diamond’s own table left it blank.
• Max fuel imbalance. Roughly 10 USG standard tanks, 8 USG long-range, per the sourced operator checklist.
• No short/soft-field procedure. None turned up as standard for the type, so none is invented here.
• Gear/flap aural warning quirk. Pilot forum only, not in any document. Anecdotal.
• XL / XLS / CS. Treated as the DA40-180 baseline; three-blade prop handling and PowerFlow-exhaust leaning effects were not researched.