PAVE is the FAA’s preflight risk checklist. It sorts the hazards of any flight into four categories: the Pilot in command, the Aircraft, the enVironment, and External pressures. You run through it before every flight to spot hazards, then decide how to handle each one using personal minimums you set in advance. It comes from the FAA’s Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge (PHAK, FAA-H-8083-25C, Chapter 2) and Risk Management Handbook (FAA-H-8083-2A).
The P in PAVE starts with the IMSAFE checklist, and the A leans on the airworthiness memory aids. All of them are collected in our guide to aviation memory aids.
What PAVE stands for
The PHAK introduces PAVE as a way to perceive hazards: built into preflight planning, it divides the risks of flight into four categories you examine before each flight. The Risk Management Handbook calls them four hazard “buckets” and says that using all four before a flight captures most hazards normally encountered. Here is the checklist sized for your kneeboard:
- P Pilot in command: IMSAFE; experience, recency, currency, and proficiency for this flight
- A Aircraft: right airplane, airworthy and equipped, runway performance, load, altitude, fuel with reserves
- V enVironment: weather, terrain, airports, airspace and TFRs, night
- E External pressures: people waiting, schedules, passengers, get-there-itis; have an alternative plan
P: Pilot in command
The PHAK boils the first letter down to one question: “Am I ready for this trip?” in terms of experience, recency, currency, physical, and emotional condition. Your physical and emotional condition is what IMSAFE checks. The Risk Management Handbook covers the capability side with three questions:
- Qualification: do you hold the certificate, ratings, and endorsements the flight requires? For a student, that means a solo endorsement for the specific make and model, given by your instructor within the 90 days before the flight (14 CFR 61.87(n)), and compliance with any limitations your instructor wrote in your logbook (61.89(a)(8)).
- Currency: have you met the recent-experience requirements, and are they enough for this flight?
- Proficiency: can you handle the conditions you expect? Legal currency from practice months ago is not the same as being sharp today.
Attitude counts as well. The PHAK names five hazardous attitudes that interfere with sound decisions: anti-authority, impulsivity, invulnerability, macho, and resignation.
A: Aircraft
The PHAK asks what limitations the aircraft will impose on the trip:
- Is this the right aircraft for the flight, and am I familiar with and current in it?
- Is it equipped for the flight, including instruments, lights, and navigation and communication equipment?
- Can it use the available runways with an adequate margin of safety under the conditions to be flown?
- Can it carry the planned load and operate at the altitudes the trip needs?
- Does it have enough fuel capacity, with reserves, for each leg, and does the fuel delivered match the fuel ordered?
The PHAK adds that published performance figures are based on a brand-new aircraft flown by a professional test pilot. Before the numbers, confirm the airplane is legal: required documents (ARROW), inspections (AV1ATES), and equipment (ATOMATOFLAMES). Then work out takeoff and landing performance and weight and balance. The Risk Management Handbook also treats inoperative equipment as a hazard: an inoperative landing light can make a night flight more hazardous, even though 14 CFR 91.205 requires one only when the aircraft is operated for hire.
V: enVironment
The environment is everything that is not the pilot or the airplane. The PHAK groups it like this:
- Weather: the current ceiling and visibility, the chance it differs from the forecast, winds and crosswind components, thunderstorms, and icing. Compare it with the VFR weather minimums and your personal minimums, using METARs and TAFs and our guide to weather hazards.
- Terrain: safe altitudes determined in advance from your charts, including maximum elevation figures.
- Airports: lighting at the destination and alternates, NOTAMs for closed runways or lights out, short or obstructed fields, and a route that keeps airports within reach in case of an engine failure.
- Airspace: the airspace and any temporary flight restrictions (TFRs) along the route.
- Night: whether a safe emergency landing is possible, a check of all aircraft lights, and at least two flashlights.
The Risk Management Handbook adds density altitude, the combination of high temperature and high elevation that affects takeoffs, climbs, and landings; see our density altitude guide.
E: External pressures
External pressures are influences outside the flight that create a sense of pressure to complete it, often at the expense of safety. The PHAK’s list includes someone waiting at the airport, a passenger you do not want to disappoint, the desire to demonstrate your skills or impress someone, get-home-itis and get-there-itis, and the pride that makes it hard to admit your skill and experience may be lower than you would like. For a student, it might be an upcoming checkride or a rental airplane due back at a set time.
The PHAK calls managing external pressure the single most important key to risk management, because it is the one category that can cause a pilot to ignore all the others. Its remedy is personal standard operating procedures that build in a release:
- Allow time for an extra fuel stop or an unplanned landing for weather.
- Have alternate plans for a late arrival, and tell the people waiting that you may be delayed.
- Manage passengers’ expectations so they know the schedule is not firm.
- Carry a small overnight kit so you never feel forced to get home.
Personal minimums: decide before you are tempted
PAVE finds hazards; personal minimums decide in advance how much of each you will accept. The FAA’s Risk Management Handbook describes them as limits more restrictive than the regulations, based on your own experience and proficiency, and lays out six steps:
- Review the weather flight categories (VFR, MVFR, IFR, LIFR) and the ceilings and visibilities that define them.
- Assess your experience and comfort level, such as recent hours, night and crosswind landings, and time in this airplane.
- Consider other conditions, such as the strongest surface wind, gusts, and crosswind you have handled comfortably in the last six to twelve months, and the shortest runway you have used.
- Assemble and evaluate the numbers into a baseline personal minimums table.
- Adjust for specific conditions. For each special factor, such as fatigue, an unfamiliar airplane or airport, or a must-meet deadline, the handbook’s example adds at least 500 feet to your ceiling, at least half a mile to visibility, and at least 500 feet to required runway length, and subtracts at least 5 knots from your wind limits.
- Stick to the plan. Written minimums make a no-go or divert decision easier, and easier to explain to passengers.
The handbook adds three cautions: never adjust your minimums to complete a specific flight, change only one variable at a time, and talk to a flight instructor before any significant adjustment. The PHAK’s classic example: if the airplane’s handbook lists a 15-knot crosswind but your experience tops out at 10 knots, 10 knots is your limit until a CFI trains you for more.
PAVE, CARE, and TEAM: the 3P model
The PHAK combines the six steps of risk management into an easy-to-remember 3P model: Perceive, Process, Perform. PAVE is the first step.
| Step | Checklist | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| Perceive | PAVE: Pilot, Aircraft, enVironment, External pressures | Identify hazards. For each element, ask what could hurt you, your passengers, or your aircraft. |
| Process | CARE: Consequences, Alternatives, Reality, External factors | Evaluate whether each hazard creates a real risk to this flight. |
| Perform | TEAM: Transfer, Eliminate, Accept, Mitigate | Choose a risk control, act on it, and evaluate the result. |
The PHAK’s rule of thumb for the process step: if you hear yourself saying it will “probably” be okay, it is time for a solid reality check. The loop does not stop at takeoff: the PHAK calls decision-making a continuous loop of perceiving, processing, and performing, and the Risk Management Handbook applies the same model in flight, for example when data-link weather shows thunderstorms developing ahead.
How to run PAVE before a flight
- Start with yourself: run IMSAFE and check your currency and proficiency for the day’s conditions.
- Check the airplane: documents, inspections, required equipment, any inoperative items, weight and balance, and runway performance for the actual conditions.
- Brief the environment: weather, NOTAMs and TFRs, terrain, and airports along the route, compared with your personal minimums. Our cross-country planning guide walks through the briefing.
- Name your external pressures: who is expecting you, what deadline you face, and what you will do if you do not go.
- Process and perform: run each hazard through CARE, pick a TEAM response, and decide in advance where you would turn back or divert.
Example: you are planning a solo cross-country. You have not flown in three weeks (P), the airplane is in good condition (A), the destination is forecast VFR with a gusty crosswind near your baseline limit (V), and you want the flight done before your checkride is scheduled (E). Under the Risk Management Handbook’s approach, the lack of recent flying and the deadline pressure each call for more margin, so a crosswind near your baseline limit is now beyond your adjusted minimums. TEAM gives you options: mitigate with a dual flight to get sharp again and a destination whose runway lines up with the wind, or eliminate the risk by rescheduling. Your instructor is part of the decision too: under 14 CFR 61.93(d), an instructor may not permit a solo cross-country without determining that your planning is correct, that the flight can be completed under VFR, and that you are proficient to conduct it safely.
PAVE on the checkride
The Private Pilot Airman Certification Standards (FAA-S-ACS-6C) build PAVE into the Preflight Assessment task: its risk management elements are the pilot, the aircraft, the environment (weather, airports, airspace, terrain, obstacles), and external pressures (PA.II.A.R1 through R4). The Weather Information task tests go/no-go and continue/divert decisions, including personal weather minimums (PA.I.C.R1), and the Human Factors task requires a self-assessment that includes personal minimums (PA.I.H.S2). Be ready for scenario questions on the oral exam that you can answer by walking through PAVE, then CARE and TEAM, and see our checkride guide for the rest of the test.
Gear for preflight risk management
What you'll need
Tools for running PAVE in the cockpit and studying the FAA sources behind it.
Frequently asked questions
What does PAVE stand for in aviation?
Pilot in command, Aircraft, enVironment, and External pressures. It is the FAA’s checklist for identifying the hazards of a flight, from the Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge and the Risk Management Handbook.
When should I use the PAVE checklist?
Before every flight as part of preflight planning, and again whenever conditions change in flight, because the FAA treats risk management as a continuous loop.
How does PAVE relate to IMSAFE?
IMSAFE is the pilot part of PAVE. The PHAK says the pilot must ask whether they are ready for the trip in terms of experience, recency, currency, physical, and emotional condition, and that the IMSAFE checklist provides the answers.
What are CARE and TEAM?
They are the second and third steps of the FAA’s 3P model. After PAVE helps you perceive hazards, CARE (Consequences, Alternatives, Reality, External factors) helps you process them, and TEAM (Transfer, Eliminate, Accept, Mitigate) helps you choose how to manage each one.
What are personal minimums?
Limits you set for yourself that are more restrictive than the regulations, such as the lowest ceiling and visibility and the strongest crosswind you will accept, based on your own experience and proficiency. The FAA Risk Management Handbook gives a six-step process for setting them.
Is PAVE on the private pilot checkride?
Yes, in substance. The Preflight Assessment task in the private pilot ACS lists the pilot, aircraft, environment, and external pressures as its risk management elements, and the ACS tells examiners to test your ability to apply and correlate information, using rote questions only when appropriate.