Scary flight scenario - a tale of 2 pilots.....

I wonder how many of us would truthfully admit to:

1] A through pre-flight of the airplane
2] or sloppy walk around

3] A complete use of checklist
4] or quick check committed to memory

I must [truthfully] confess that I have become complacent with both the pre-flight and checklist
 
RE: checklists
In rental clubs my big issue with checklists is that they're not standardized and generally horribly put together by the owner of the plane. The level of detail also varries greatly, and is in a completely illogical manner.. for the runup it will mag check, then vacuum, then carb heat, then ammeter, then annunciator, then oil pressure, etc.. zigzagging all over the cockpit. You will get in some rental planes and the pretakeoff checklist will be a complete joke, with like 3 items on it, and then others that fill 3 pages with stuff, pretty much instructing you how to fly the airplane... a) air vents, correct b) seat, comfortable c) sunglasses, on d) rozen sun visor, in correct position e) headset, comfortable... etc.
^my favorite are the people who prime the engine, then spend the next 15 minutes reading the checklist and can't figure out why the engine won't start


I think there's a difference in whether you own or rent too. If you rent, and often go from a fuel injected 172, to a carb'd 182, to an Arrow, etc., the checklist is important to remember certain things like switching tanks, fuel pumps, etc. But if you own.. that changes the dynamic dramatically

Possum said:
I wonder how many of us would truthfully admit to:

1] A through pre-flight of the airplane
2] or sloppy walk around

3] A complete use of checklist
4] or quick check committed to memory

I must [truthfully] confess that I have become complacent with both the pre-flight and checklist
Click to expand...
always check fuel and sump, oil, pitot, static, and control continuity, and look for oil or fluid under the plane
^that takes maybe 2 minutes tops (that's if you are very thorough) and could very well save your life. I don't think that's a sloppy pre-flight. If you squatting under the plane and staring at it for 45 minutes then that's overkill in my book

I do watch people get in a plane and go.. and then I also read about people with several hundred hours crashing because the control lock was left in place, tank was dry or full of water, etc. BUT again, if it is your airplane and it is in a private hangar.. at least check the controls, fuel, and oil.
 
I wonder how the "non-checklist-using" folks here would do if they wrote down their mental checklist, and then compared it to the actual checklist? If you left something out, does that mean it's not important? I had an instructor make me write out the preflight checklist (maybe they all do), and I didn't do as well as I wanted, but I always used the written checklist in the plane for all phases of flight. Because human.
 
Kenny Phillips said:
I wonder how the "non-checklist-using" folks here would do if they wrote down their mental checklist, and then compared it to the actual checklist? If you left something out, does that mean it's not important? I had an instructor make me write out the preflight checklist (maybe they all do), and I didn't do as well as I wanted, but I always used the written checklist in the plane for all phases of flight. Because human.
Click to expand...
The checklist I have in my plane was prepared from two sources: my flow, and the POH checklist. I made sure when I was preparing it that it has everything in the POH checklist, rearranged when necessary to conform to the order in my flow, and then made sure that I did everything on my new checklist. So now my flow includes everything in the POH checklist, arranged in such a way that I don't need to constantly refer to the checklist.

I still use the checklist as a backup, to double check that I've done everything, when I haven't flown for a while, though.
 
Scariest pilot I ever flew with in a Bonaza V tail was a 28 year pilot for United. Checklists are great but they aren't all that and a bag of chips if the pilot sucks, regardless of age or time logged as PIC.
 
Last edited:
Have lots of time in my c Mooney, was on a cross country and after a fuel stop the gear wouldn’t stay up ( Johnson bar), I had forgotten to put on my seatbelt and the strap was enough to prevent the bar from latching in the up position. I got lazy, always use a checklist now.
The problem is I have no checklist to direct me to use the checklist.
 
PaulS said:
Why do you complicate things so much? Kick the tires, light the fires...… you're good to go.
Click to expand...
Even at every stop on a cross-country, we have a short list of "s*** that can kill you" that we used. Nope, never found anything worse than low tires or a saggy oleo, but the investment in time brings huge peace of mind.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top