In addition to what's been said, here are two other things on my pax briefing list:
- Cellphones off
- "My controls"/"Your controls" if I'm going to let the pax steer the aircraft for a while.
- The route we're going to fly. In fact, I typically carry last years chart specifically for this.
Furthermore, I've got a few items that I'm covering specifically for aerobatics flights:
- How to deal with g-forces: Look straight ahead, don't turn your head. (We're not exceeding 4g on these aeros flights, so squeezing/breathing techniques do not need to be covered, and you can't really learn this from a verbal briefing anyway.)
- How to deal with airsickness (Yes, I cover this specifically on aeros flights as the chances of getting sick are much higher. But also, by suspending the aeros or going back to the field, I also have way more options to deal with it. If you do get sick while flying straight and level there's not a lot I can do.)
- How to deal with the "grab something" reflex. (During some abrubt manoevers, pax sometimes have the reflex to want to grab something. One pax grabbed my throttle arm during a spin, and another pax (an instructor even) grabbed and blocked the stick during spin recovery. Since then, I always brief my pax to grab their shoulder belts if they want to grab something in a reflex. Works very well.)
- And I specifically talk the pax through the manoevers we're going to perform.
The pax brief list is a sticker on the back of my kneeboard - a very useful place for all these non-aircraft-specific lists.