Big Runway

Checklists are not Do Lists! I’ve heard that a lot recently. Especially from American instructors. What the heck do they mean? You have a checklist. It has a list of items on it. You go down the list and make sure you’ve carried out all the items right? Don’t misunderstand me but the last time I was demonstrating my flying skills to an American, they watched me set up the aircraft for Take off, finger on the checklist items. Mixture (Full Rich), Throttle (quarter inch) etc. After an hours flying in the local area, she was convinced that I could fly alright, I’d just learnt to use the checklist all wrong. She had been thinking

“Jees. Can this guy even fly? He has to read all the items to start the engine!”

It is a common mistake, I’m told (that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it) that Checklist are used as do lists. Even high hour pilots do this. Eventually they discover their mistake and correct it.

Here’s an example from the commercial world. The handling pilot (not feeling well) had set up for approach. The captain read out

“Altimeter 992 millibars”

The First Officer read repeated

“992″.

Unfortunately the First Officer had 29.92 inches set on the altimeter.

That’s a difference of 500 feet. The verbal prompt alerted the captain to the error. Something that the Do List would not have.

One option for getting out of the Do List mentality is to get your instructor to read out the checklist after you’ve set up the aircraft, I know that’s not practical for a flight test (or check ride), but it starts to get you into the right frame of mind.

So set up the aircraft from memory (certainly important items should be memorized) and then check against the checklist. That’s why it’s called a checklist!