Project Preflight
Safety From the Cockpit to Campus
An aviation-inspired safety and preparedness program that helps college women make smarter, more confident decisions on campus.
Project Preflight is a safety and preparedness program built for college women. It adapts the decision-making principles used every day by professional pilots — threat assessment, situational awareness, and structured checklists — into practical skills students can apply in everyday campus life. The program addresses the decisions young women told us they felt least prepared to make when they first arrived on campus: how to read a room, how to set a limit, how to leave a situation, and how to act decisively when something feels off.
Rather than relying on slogans or one-size-fits-all advice, Project Preflight teaches a concrete framework made up of four modules: Agency Protocol, The Four Threat Levels, The Flight Deck, and Sovereignty. Together, these modules give students a shared vocabulary and a repeatable process for assessing situations before they become crises. The goal is not to live in fear, but to build real Agency — the capability to act in your own best interest when it matters most.
Project Preflight is designed for the entire campus community — students preparing to live independently for the first time, parents supporting that transition, student affairs and orientation leaders looking for ready-to-implement content, and campus safety partners working to strengthen existing programs. It is built to complement, not replace, the safety resources colleges already have in place, and it is suitable for first-year orientation, residence life programming, sorority education, and ongoing awareness campaigns throughout the academic year.
The program was created and is led by Captain Robert Polakoski, a former United Airlines Captain and US Air Force Instructor Pilot. While researching his novel "Fool, Anticipation," Capt. Polakoski heard the same concern again and again from young women heading off to college: they felt totally unprepared for the kinds of decisions they would face in their first weeks on campus. Drawing on the same aviation safety principles that protect millions of airline passengers every day, he developed Project Preflight to close that gap — turning professional-grade safety thinking into skills students can actually use.
Built on Real Frameworks
Draws directly from aviation decision-making and threat-assessment protocols.
For the Whole Campus Community
Designed for students, parents, orientation leaders, and campus safety partners.
Practical, Not Theoretical
Concrete checklists and vocabulary students can use the very same day.