A new video from the FAA Safety Team notes that the installation and use of aftermarket safety equipment, like shoulder harnesses, engine monitoring equipment, enhanced and synthetic vision systems, and angle of attack indicators can significantly reduce the likelihood or severity of some general aviation accidents.
However, many pilots are missing essential items on their checklists every time they fly because items from the flight manual supplements that come with aftermarket or optional equipment are not considered.
That’s why it may be a good idea to create your own checklist, as explained in this 57-second video.
Many airlines use a long-flow, short-checklist philosophy.
The flow identifies every item that should be considered as well as a description of how it should be done. The flow is in a workable, practical order. Items are memorized.
The checklist, on the other hand, is a short subset of the flow and are the critical items. Sometimes called the ‘killer items’. These are the real safety items that must be done, such as trim, flap setting, fuel selector, landing gear position, etc. The checklist doesn’t include things that really don’t matter much such as lights, transponder setting, etc. The checklist items should be read aloud and acknowledged on every flight. They are the no-kidding, serious items.
I use the long-flow, short-checklist philosophy the I fly my airplane. Works well. The checklist is so short that I can tape it to the panel for easy, hands-free, reference.
Nobody should fly a plane without a checklist, including your husband. And nobody should be paring down, or thinking they have memorized the checklist. I don’t carry my checklist around with me when I am doing my exterior check but I do look at it once I am done to make sure I have looked at everything.
I am a bush pilot in Northern Canada where there are no roads to land on and the mountains and rivers run wild. Perhaps you become more complacent when you have roads and fields in abundance that you can land on in an emergency.
I also have a SHUTDOWN checklist to help insure that I have a flyable airplane next time I return.
THINGS YOU DON’T WANT TO FORGET AT SHUTDOWN on a 172
MASTER SWITCH OFF
SWITCHES OFF
FUEL SELECTOR OFF
TACH & HOBBS RECORDED
TRIM TAKEOFF SETTING
CONTROL LOCK INSTALLED
RUDDER GUST LOCK INSTALLED
PITOT COVER INSTALLED
COWL PLUGS INSTALLED
TIE DOWNS 3 PLACES
PASS DOOR LOCKED
And a few others specific to my airplane
Thanks Jerry. I am going to jot your list down and carry it with me. Dave from the Yukon.
I have always thought that the manufacturer’s checklists are a starting point, and especially important for newbies. But soon with any experience, it becomes obvious that they’re excessively detailed. So many years ago, I started condensing them into what is really necessary. Unfortunately for many years, I also thought I could just keep my condensed version in my head, which worked most of the time. But every so often, I’d forget something. Luckily it was never something that impacted safety at the time, but sometimes it could have—like forgetting to turn on the transponder, or forgetting to set the DG to the compass heading, or forgetting to set the altimeter. As I’ve aged, those forgotten things happened more often, so that now I do what I should have done all along—I use my condensed written checklists. I still rely on GUMPS for landing—I fly a relatively simple “hot rod” 172, and GUMPS is completely adequate for it, and it allows me to keep my eyes out in the pattern rather than in reading a checklist.
The main problem with long, detailed and tedious checklists from the ‘book’ is that they are TOO long, tedious and detailed and pilots stop using them. The ‘fix’ is to make a summarized list that is quick and easy to use; so that it WILL be used.
Note. The FIRST item on EVERY checklist in bold, capital letters should be “CHECK FUEL” Maybe say it twice and add the phrase “REALLY CHECK FUEL” as if your life depended on it, why? Because it does.
My husband and I build an RV-9A together. As an engineer, he felt no need for a checklist, though gladly supported my creating one myself. I asked endless questions, but soon had a pretty good handle on the general operating procedures. As I prepared the document on my computer, I highlighted each step, then had him review it. I generally followed the checklist for a C-150, but used fewer words. The process also helped me learn and gave me confidence. Others saw my brief, laminated document and asked where I’d bought it. I laughed. “Like the plane, it’s a do-it-yourself,” I said.
As an airline pilot checklists are at the core of our safety culture where we trust but verify. Checklists should be memorized and referenced as they are read and complied with. As an engineer, your husband must be aware of the flaw of human memory that we can become complacent and unintentionally omit items in completing a process. All airline pilots use checklists as do military and NASA pilots. All pilots should use checklists it is part of the process of flying whose central tenet is safety.
This video is certainly valuable and contains information that all pilots should follow, but it left out some important points. I have been creating my own checklists for decades. I start by reprinting the POH checklist items exactly as the factory published them. I then add all of the items that were published in the POH supplements that the airplane has collected over the years. The place where I go a little further is to add items that come form years of experience as an aircraft owner, CFI, and FAASTeam Lead Rep. Those items include things that have been known to be maintenance items that are particular to the make and model, items that came from airworthiness directives, and other things that I personally feel are important to check. The other important oversight includes seatbelt briefings (Yes, legally required even in a C-150), briefing your PAX on how to manually activate the ELT (What if the pilot is incapacitated in a crash and no one else knows what an ELT is?), and checklist items specific to night flying, IFR flights, etc. I also add a disclaimer at the top of the new checklist stating that this is not the POH checklist but includes all items published there. Again, experience has inspired me to add those. I have had the pleasure of a complete electrical failure on a pitch black night in a remote wilderness area in Maine. Think about that for a sec. No lights, no radios, no panel lights, navigation radios, flap motor, or anything else. Nothing but complete blackness in the air and on the ground. It was fortunate that I always have small led flashlights in my flight bag so I could see my flight instruments, but my checklist now includes a handheld radio with VOR and checking to see if the flashlights actually work. Had that happened on a night IFR flight in hard IMC it would have been a different story.
Checklists help us to keep ourselves, our passengers, and people on the ground safe. They only take a minute to use correctly, which is the best investment of time any pilot can make. As a CFI, I teach students and experienced pilots a specific method in which to use our checklists. That is because in the absence of that, I continuously observe people inadvertently skipping an item or reading it but not actually checking it but somehow thinking they did. Every item needs a three step process. 1. Read the item aloud (talking to ourselves actually makes us acknowledge and do), 2. Touch the item with your finger (touching actually makes us complete the item), and 3. Recite the result aloud (talking to ourselves makes us confirm). It works miraculously.
The accident data clearly demonstrates that a large percentage of aircraft accidents could have been prevented had the pilot completed the checklist. Almost every pilot that I have given FAA remedial training under the FAASTeam program over the years was due to an accident or incident that happened because a cheklist item was left out. The are the easiest accidents to avoid and they are completely on the pilot. I lost a friend a few years back when he landed a seaplane in the water with the gear down after departing a land airport. That means he failed to retract the gear after takeoff (a checklist item) and failed to check for gear retracted on landing (another checklist item). It’s tragic. He was a 35,000 hour pilot. So whether you are flying a 150 or a 787, your checklists are your life. They are vitally important. Don’t use the one that’s in your head. It’s useless. Use the one that’s in your cockpit. It only takes a sec, and it’s worth your time! Every pilot should create updated checklists as this video suggests, and add items that you think are important.
Excellent and very well explained.
I have been encouraging pilots to do this for years, With TAA(technically advanced avionics ) or electronic flight bags, you don’t need paper. You can write your custom checklist digitally.
I built my own airplane, so yes I created my own checklist. BTW, most checklists are much longer than necessary. Stop and think about what it’s for, and only include the things that actually matter and make sense. I see people going through long checklists just to start up a 150. Good grief..
Good point about Checklist length. There exist long lists of actions to be taken (“Procedures”), and shorter lists of critical items that should be “Checked” (i.e. did an important step in the procedure GET DONE and STAY DONE).