Possible Dangers of Memory Flying

My wife was discussing this topic with a friend after a flight where I used a checklist, but I had remarked that I don't usually for short local trips. My wife said "I worry more when he uses the checklist. I know he's nervous or worried when he uses it." I thought it was a pretty good observation on her part, because it's totally true. When I'm 100% on top of my game, and the flight is simple and no curve balls, I typically don't use the checklist. Whenever I have even the slightest doubt that something might distract me, I'll use them religiously. So, I'm more likely to use them when I have a new passenger, particularly kids, it's a longer trip, or I have other things distracting me, but if it's a local flight I've made a dozen times, and the weather is CAVU, and I'm feeling good, I just use flows. But if anything trips me up, the checklists come out.
 
Skyrys62 said:
A good'n...
I especially like #38

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I wonder if you add an item that says "check checklist", how many people would get caught in an infinite recursive loop. :)

I'm guessing that #38 exists because people get so focused on the checklist and away from the flight instruments that it leads to unusual attitudes?
 
Kritchlow said:
While I’m a fan if checklists, this is not a checklist. Its more of a set of instructions for a student pilot.
A well written checklist should be short & sweet, just enough to ensure critical items were not missed during the flows.
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agreed
 
What if you can't remember to remember to use the checklist?
 
Kritchlow said:
While I’m a fan if checklists, this is not a checklist. Its more of a set of instructions for a student pilot.
A well written checklist should be short & sweet, just enough to ensure critical items were not missed during the flows.
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Agree completely. I once had a discussion with a Chief instructor of a flying club. "Why don't pilots use checklists?" he asked. "Because most checklists suck," I replied (I had read the official club one).

So much extraneous junk = a checklist begging to be ignored.
 
Working from memory is great for simple aircraft operating in a low workload environment. Operating a complex aircraft and high workload with distractions?

https://theaviationist.com/2010/12/12/c-17-aib-report/

https://www.airwarriors.com/community/threads/b-1-gear-up-landing.18358/

Now, have I seen errors in CRM while using a checklist? Yep, blew a cargo hook squib myself when my copilot read the checklist wrong. But that’s different. That’s the improper use of a checklist. I’d be willing to bet, that the incidents / accidents in aviation are far fewer with improper checklist use vs doing things from memory. Ask Henning. ;)
 
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I really don't like the checklists like the Checkmate style. Way too cluttered, and too much stuff I don't need at a particular time. Plus I prefer something that's customized for my plane and my own needs (like bolding or highlighting an item I'm prone to overlook).

I made my checklist using multiple pages, 8"x5.5", slipped into plastic sleeves and then made into a booklet with small rings. It's arranged so that I don't have to turn pages during any single phase. For example, all the pre-flight stuff is on two pages, so they're back to back and I just flip it over. Start, taxi, and run-up checklists are the same way. Cruise and landing are on one page so I don't have to turn pages or hunt for an item in flight. The emergency checklist has a red tab so I can flip to it immediately.

Each page also has a unique border color: brown for pre-flight, green for start, taxi, and run-up, blue for in-flight, red for emergency. That makes it easy to know I'm on the correct list.

Doing it this way buries unneeded material out of sight, and it also lets me use a large enough font that I can read it easily without reading glasses and while getting bounced around in chop.
 
TCABM said:
Fights on. Bold face is rote memorization of a checklist and does nothing to encourage critical thinking of the emergency at hand and breaks the CRM model.
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You’ve got to get far enough to apply critical thinking. Memorization of immediate action items not only gets you that far, but gives your brain a tool to settle down and get away from helmet fire.
Re-attack: Single seat cockpits demonstrate CRM is for leaf eaters.
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Single seat cockpits demonstrate a need to understand and use resources other than someone else in the cockpit.
 
TCABM said:
Fights on. Bold face is rote memorization of a checklist and does nothing to encourage critical thinking of the emergency at hand and breaks the CRM model.

Re-attack: Single seat cockpits demonstrate CRM is for leaf eaters.
Click to expand...

I agree bold face or what we call in the Army “underlined steps” are designed for rote memory to reduce reaction time. But, after a thorough training of systems (experience), the pilot will understand what they’re reacting to.
 
Timbeck2 said:
Someone has a YouTube channel in which they fly a two person crewed airplane with a box mounted on the top of the glareshield. As they complete a checklist item, they switch the lights on the box. Now granted this is an aircraft with a lot of checklist items to be completed and one of them is the "nut cracker". My landing checklist for example is only three items which are pretty easy to remember.
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That was a Gulfstream. The NutCrackers are checked after the gear go down.
 
When I read the OP's title I thought he forgot where he was going. Smarter than the average cookie, I thought I would read more... now I am confused by the list no list camps lucid arguments. Now I don't feel so smart or smug.
<confession time>
For instance, if it's just me, I get out the checklist after I've sat down to see "what did I forget?"; but if I have my wife or someone else, I give it to them and repeat back every item so I 'sound' officially important. (is that arrogant? I can't decide)

As creatures of habit, we do repetitive mundane poorly. Have a shiny object distraction fly over, and we forget what was last, or next. So in retrospect, I would say I need to modify my habit of checking after sitting, and drop some of the arrogance when I'm carrying precious cargo so that I focus on doing what's right.

</confession time>
 
TCABM said:
Re-attack: Single seat cockpits demonstrate CRM is for leaf eaters.
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QFT cuz I can't like it twice.

....in fairness to me, I never said I'd make a good FO in the first place. ;)
#SportofKings

--brk brk--


Occam told me the reason for extraneous checklists in lawnmowers is: bias towards crew-based airline training. USAF did a similar thing with the DA-20 and SR-20, incorporating information presentation-parity with that of the follow-on trainers in UPT. I remember my ATP checkride in the semenhole; same extraneous airline LARPing nonsense, while flying single pilot mind you.
 
What does the “leaf eaters” saying mean??

CRM for single pilot is the same for two pilot, less the other pilot.
CRM means ALL available resources to gather info and help with the situation, nit just the other pilot.

ATC, dispatch, FSS, manuals, flight attendants, iPad apps are all resources fir CRM… Not just the other pilot.
 
Matthew said:
It's been long time since I read this article, it was written in 2007. But any time I read about checklists I am reminded of it.

It's a pretty good story that ties the B-17 to modern medicine. The connection is the checklist.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/12/10/the-checklist
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Every major manufacturer in the country started building war machines in WWII. Some that made cars and refrigerators started making airplanes, and there are other examples I'm sure. One of the problems was each mfr made their cockpits a bit different. Landing gear on the left, flaps on the right; landing gear on the right, flaps on the left. Pilots in those days were switching aircraft with little to no training. You can see where this is going. Sure enough, guy clears the runway, raises flaps, and it was gear he raised. Finally the Army Air Corps put their technical and scientific people to work analyzing the various and many mishaps. The end result was the emergence of Human Factors as a recognized discipline. Standardization of flight controls was one outcome. Standardization of operating procedures and checklists too. Shape coding, color coding, position, etc. all started coming together. Maybe except the early Bonanzas, lol.
 
Sometimes I forgot to do things as quickly as I would like to, but that is usually from a distraction. In the event of a distraction, it’s unlikely that I would use a checklist, rather I would fly the airplane. Some things I forget to do but I figure it out typically within a couple minutes.

Airspeed isn’t increasing, altitude climb is poor —> Raise those flaps or landing gear

Turn off landing light or fuel pump

That’s what I typically run into.

The other day I parked for fuel and I did not use a control wheel lock and there was some gusts of wind that came in, wasn’t happy to see those ailerons flapping in the wind.
 
Kritchlow said:
What does the “leaf eaters” saying mean??
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Variation for Herbivores. 'Prey', 'Target', 'TOADs', 'fatties', 'heavies', 'blunt nose', and my favorite: 'he who taxi too slow/never staggers', in my best Native American inflection. :D

Terms of endearment for transport category aircraft [mobility/tanker, and special use variants of the same like AWACS, EA, and ASW] and their pilots.
 
I like pulling out the check list and going through the items for start up and run up. Kinda slows me down. Gets ready for a flight better. Reminds me to do a passenger brief-is added to my check list as I’d forget that in past.
When in air I use flow then list after. I’ll miss closing cowl flaps if I was busy on the radio or distracted. But will never miss if I pull that list out after leveled off. Once landed and ready to shut down I like the list out first then action.
 
TCABM said:
Fights on. Bold face is rote memorization of a checklist and does nothing to encourage critical thinking of the emergency at hand and breaks the CRM model.
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One of the many things to love about the Eagle : no boldface!
 
Hang 4 said:
For relatively simple airplanes, the commercially available checklists are a bit ridiculously complex. That complexity leads to skipping or just reading off stuff without potentially doing it. Once you're at ~ 1k AGL, shut off the fuel pump. Higher up, adjust the mixture. Switch tanks once in a while. Landing - mixture and fuel pump on. The non-user friendly nature of the Checkmate list, discourages checklist usage. I'm in the process of creating my own, vastly simpler one in the hopes of using it more religiously. There's huge value in checklists in GA - just needs some human factor work to make them more valuable.
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THIS!

IMO, most GA pilots flying most GA aircraft should make their own checklists. GA checklists SUCK. The first time I flew a jet, one of the biggest things that impressed me was how much better the checklists are. And did you know that there are more checklist items before the wheels get off the ground for a Cessna 172 than there are for a Hawker 800? They're ridiculous, and as a result people learn the exact wrong thing: "Don't use checklists."

I can definitely see both sides of this. I fly in my own GA plane mostly sans checklists, but my day job is as director of safety and captain for an air carrier. So I think about this stuff a lot...

In an ideal world, every pilot would use checklists... But they would be checklists that pilot created, based on their own weaknesses, which we all have, after a lot of careful thought and consideration to the items on the factory checklists and the consequences of not doing them.

One of my "favorites" is this from the C172 preflight checklist:

MASTER ................ ON
FUEL GAUGES ..... CHECK
MASTER ................OFF

How about we just teach people about the airplane's systems enough that we don't need the first and third items there, and if the gauges don't match what they saw under the caps they can be like "Oh duh, those gauges are electric and I need to turn the master on to check them." And then they wouldn't have to print checklists in a microscopic font size that greatly increases the chances of someone missing something far more important.

It would be nice if the industry would teach proper use as a *check* list and not a "do list" like most people are taught. Do the thing first. Check it later.

Also, there is a lot of value in doing things the same way every time.

I have a lot of thoughts on this subject, maybe I'll post again later and organize them better. :loco:
 
hindsight2020 said:
Variation for Herbivores. 'Prey', 'Target', 'TOADs', 'fatties', 'heavies', 'blunt nose', and my favorite: 'he who taxi too slow/never staggers', in my best Native American inflection. :D

Terms of endearment for transport category aircraft [mobility/tanker, and special use variants of the same like AWACS, EA, and ASW] and their pilots.
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Okay. Not sure why folks speak in code.

So its pilots of an aircraft that require more than one man for crew. That’s a leaf eater..??
 
TCABM said:
Fights on. Bold face is rote memorization of a checklist and does nothing to encourage critical thinking of the emergency at hand and breaks the CRM model.

Re-attack: Single seat cockpits demonstrate CRM is for leaf eaters.
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I cannot begin to express how little you know.

I guess now that I understand (I think) what a leaf eater is.
 
Doc Holliday said:
That was a Gulfstream. The NutCrackers are checked after the gear go down.
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Thanks Doc. In one video they went down to the gear linkage to explain what they were talking about and it looked like a nut cracker. Before they explained it I thought it was something in the cockpit that was um..dangerous in some way
 
Kritchlow said:
Okay. Not sure why folks speak in code.
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Same reason airline guys speak shop. It's just shop talk/banter.

Kritchlow said:
So its pilots of an aircraft that require more than one man for crew. That’s a leaf eater..??
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Not quite. That the majority of herbies happen to be crew airplanes is actually incidental, not causal. It is their non-kinetic and (generally) non-maneuverable nature that makes them so. Another aspect is pilot-centric, specifically the perception said pilots do not have a tactical mindset within their communities, whether as a function of low morale across their MWS (thats .mil "code" for major weapon system), or just a general lack of mission focus for reasons that run the gamut and are beyond the scope of this thread. And yes, comporting oneself with the overt approach that one's primary duty in the military is time building for the airlines, makes said pilot a raging herbivore.

Examples of non-herbie crew aircraft exist, say most bombers to include the B-15 *cough* er I mean F-15E mudhen. AC-130 is a rare example of an aircraft series that falls both in the herbie (slicks) and carnivore (gunship) variant. In the end, it's a bit of a mindset as far as the pilot side of the moniker is concerned. Plenty of historical examples of tanker pilots who went above and beyond, putting their non-ejection seated rears in lethal danger in order to assist a carnivore get home. TOAD may be a joke, but it's also not; it was very much a stipulated outcome in the nuclear triad for those guys. That takes stones.

All ribbing aside, we're all ultimately supporting the ground pounder 18 year old, and most of us understand our designated roles in life, from MEPS center clerical worker to the weapons pickler. Hope this clarifies things.
 
hindsight2020 said:
Same reason airline guys speak shop. It's just shop talk/banter.


Not quite. That the majority of herbies happen to be crew airplanes is actually incidental, not causal. It is their non-kinetic and (generally) non-maneuverable nature that makes them so. Another aspect is pilot-centric, specifically the perception said pilots do not have a tactical mindset within their communities, whether as a function of low morale across their MWS (thats .mil "code" for major weapon system), or just a general lack of mission focus for reasons that run the gamut and are beyond the scope of this thread. And yes, comporting oneself with the overt approach that one's primary duty in the military is time building for the airlines, makes said pilot a raging herbivore.

Examples of non-herbie crew aircraft exist, say most bombers to include the B-15 *cough* er I mean F-15E mudhen. AC-130 is a rare example of an aircraft series that falls both in the herbie (slicks) and carnivore (gunship) variant. In the end, it's a bit of a mindset as far as the pilot side of the moniker is concerned. Plenty of historical examples of tanker pilots who went above and beyond, putting their non-ejection seated rears in lethal danger in order to assist a carnivore get home. TOAD may be a joke, but it's also not; it was very much a stipulated outcome in the nuclear triad for those guys. That takes stones.

All ribbing aside, we're all ultimately supporting the ground pounder 18 year old, and most of us understand our designated roles in life, from MEPS center clerical worker to the weapons pickler. Hope this clarifies things.
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Not really, but I’ll take you at your word.
 
mandm said:
Sometimes I forgot to do things as quickly as I would like to, but that is usually from a distraction. In the event of a distraction, it’s unlikely that I would use a checklist, rather I would fly the airplane. Some things I forget to do but I figure it out typically within a couple minutes.
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There's no need to choose between flying the airplane and using a checklist. I think that is more of a function of the value you place on them than it is the nature of things. If you don't value checklist use, you say you do something else. If you do value checklist use, you train yourself to use them properly - which also means efficiently.

I was as bad as most for checklist use. The typical up-to-departure but no further except that I was actually decent about the descent/before landing segment because I fly multiple airplanes and have neither the need nor capacity to memorize their target Vref and, in some cases, target Vlo, Then I went to a seminar for older pilots where the importance of checklist use as we age was emphasized as a way to keep flying safely. No time like the present and I taught myself to use it for all phases of flight to back up my flow.
 
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Baked Potato said:
On the crappy little 150 I train in, there are like three separate checklist items where I would have noticed that the control lock was still in. RIP, but dude must have been in a real hurry.
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Easy there, a Marchetti and its control lock is very different from the one in the crappy little 150 you train in.
 
I had something for this topic...but I can't remember what it was:(
 
Mtns2Skies said:
Easy there, a Marchetti and its control lock is very different from the one in the crappy little 150 you train in.
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In the Marchetti is there a checklist item to remove the control lock? And another to inspect the control surfaces during exterior preflight? And a checklist item to test freedom of stick and control surface movement in the before takeoff section?

Seems like those basic concepts would translate to both
 
Salty said:
When I'm 100% on top of my game, and the flight is simple and no curve balls, I typically don't use the checklist.
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I figure I'm in the most danger when I think I'm 100% on top of my game. :)
 
hindsight2020 said:
AC-130 is a rare example of an aircraft series that falls both in the herbie (slicks) and carnivore (gunship) variant.
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I've been in the back on enough night NOE infil runs to defend the tactical mindset of slick C-130's, and certainly MC's. There have been plenty of actual combat ops (Grenada, Panama, VIKING HAMMER) with no shortage of ground fire. Straight and level at 110 kts and 500 feet AGL with every gun on the ground aimed at you is not a fun place to be. With 64 jumpers standing in the back, each with 100 pounds of gear strapped to them, you have no option but holding steady.
 
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