How Do You Read a Checklist?

[Henning]

Sounds like a checklist item.

Huh, I do it when I fuel as I double check the pump against the totalizer and my mental calculations to make sure they are all copacetic. I don't have a fueling check list, although 'check fuel' is on the preflight list.

 

[Jeanie]

I guess you haven't flown one of the old Challenger jets then.

Nope, haven't flown any kind of jet ...
But maybe one day I will

 

[Alexb2000]

Huh, I do it when I fuel as I double check the pump against the totalizer and my mental calculations to make sure they are all copacetic. I don't have a fueling check list, although 'check fuel' is on the preflight list.

OK serious question. If you have a totalizer why record the engine start time?

I have tested mine many times and the totalizer is within .1 gallon of the pump. Hard to be near that accurate with a clock.

 

[DouglasBader]

Three are very valid reasons to do fuel checks other than exercising blind allegiance to your totalizer. Suppose you have a fuel leak upstream of the fuel transducer? That's not going to show up on your totalizer indications. If you do see a disparity in your fuel quantity developing during the flight based on your calculated fuel burn vs. time in operation, however, you have something to go by.

Timing has been a basic part of flying an airplane since nearly day one.

 

[Alexb2000]

Three are very valid reasons to do fuel checks other than exercising blind allegiance to your totalizer. Suppose you have a fuel leak upstream of the fuel transducer? That's not going to show up on your totalizer indications. If you do see a disparity in your fuel quantity developing during the flight based on your calculated fuel burn vs. time in operation, however, you have something to go by.

Timing has been a basic part of flying an airplane since nearly day one.

How about looking at the fuel gauges?

 

[DouglasBader]

When is the only time that the fuel gauges are required to read correctly? Anyone?

Ever seen inaccurate gauges in light airplanes? It's very common to find them inaccurate, too.

We watch totalizers. We check fuel indication quantities. We note fuel flow indications. We time tanks.

 

[Henning]

OK serious question. If you have a totalizer why record the engine start time?

I have tested mine many times and the totalizer is within .1 gallon of the pump. Hard to be near that accurate with a clock.

I don't record engine start time. Between the totalizer and the timer I have 2 acurate methods of gauging fuel, then I have the fuel gauges.

 

[Henning]

When is the only time that the fuel gauges are required to read correctly? Anyone?

Ever seen inaccurate gauges in light airplanes? It's very common to find them inaccurate, too.

We watch totalizers. We check fuel indication quantities. We note fuel flow indications. We time tanks.

Dead empty.

 

[RotorAndWing]

Dead empty.

Wrong.

http://www.av8n.com/fly/fuel-gauges.htm

 

[Alexb2000]

When is the only time that the fuel gauges are required to read correctly? Anyone?

Ever seen inaccurate gauges in light airplanes? It's very common to find them inaccurate, too.

We watch totalizers. We check fuel indication quantities. We note fuel flow indications. We time tanks.

In a multi-tank piston bird you run your tanks dry as well, correct? Also, how about knowing the real capacity of each tank vs. the POH? Might be more or less.

Kind of depends how far you want to take it.

 

[Jim_R]

Dead empty.

Relevant

 

[Henning]

What's even more relevant is to pull a typical float sender out of a tank and look at it and how the system works. Now tell me how that calibration is possible to achieve.

 

[RotorAndWing]

What's even more relevant is to pull a typical float sender out of a tank and look at it. Now tell me how that calibration is possible to achieve.

Follow the MM. Schweizer (Hughes) 269 series uses that arrangement and has a calibration procedure set forth in the MM.

 

[DouglasBader]

In a multi-tank piston bird you run your tanks dry as well, correct?

I do not.

 

[Alexb2000]

I do not.

Just for discussion: If you don't then how do you know how much fuel you have and where?

 

[DouglasBader]

It's hard to run out of fuel if one doesn't burn off the bottom half.

 

[iWantWings]

I'm learning to do this:

On the ground: follow, execute and interpret the checklist as written by the flight school (I checked it with the checklist on the POH and they are mostly the same).

In the air: mostly flow and, when time allows, use the checklist. CFI, however, wants me to always be prepared and read the checklist even after I do "flow-based" sequence of events.

I like the flow-based checklist because it force me to understand what I'm doing and the reason for the flow. It's also faster. But, I think I am less likely to omit something if I do a written checklist or, if time allows, at least double-check the flow-based checklist with a written one.

For now, in flight, checklists seem like a chore and something that calls on division of attention (and for now can't chew gum and concurently learn to fly very well - but i guess they're inseparable).

 

[GCA319]

Flow to set everything then checklist to verify. It is extremely painful to fly with people who aren't students take 3 minutes to run the before start checklist in an airplane familiar to them and still miss half the stuff...Can't really blame them though-most CFI's are too lazy to teach proper checklist use and insist on read and do as the way to use one.