Getting airborne fast in WW2 without a checklist? Sure!! Why not, when you have an engineer assigned to look after your aircraft, strap you in and even start the bloodey engine for you! And, of course, the pilots involved were flying every day and, often, several times every day -- 7 days a week! So,
Centaurus would you want to use that argument to abandon Flight and Duty Time Limitations?
So, okay then, if checklists aren't needed in single-engine, single pilot bugsmashers, however you define them, but ARE needed in the larger more complex aircraft, where does the habit form? Where does the indoctrination begin? I sure don't want to be teaching a 1000 hr pilot how to use a bloodey checklist in the B200 just coz he never needed it in the BN2 or whatever!
I, too, have been an instructor. Sometimes working in integrated commercial schools, sometimes in the less glamourous schools. In either case, it was never completely clear to me whether a trainee would end up in regular, gainful employment in commercial operations.
Some trainees never made the grade to the school's standards. Others did, but never took up the professional career. How were we, as instructors, supposed to tell the difference? So we got our students into the checklist habit.
Sure, it always starts as a "do" list but, as the training progresses, it becomes a confirmation of the vital actions initiated by the pilot. Geez, that exactly what it is in the B200!! Amazing huh!
I've also had quite a bit of experience in PNG, as you would be aware
Centaurus and have done my share of 25-sector days in the hills. Everything from a C152 to an Aztec with Robertson STOL kit. Oh yeah, even an Islander or two.
All these machines ...
ALL OF THEM were fitted with those plastic flip-up, flip-down checklists. And I always used them and always MADE THE TIME to use them. Why? I didn't want to overlook
anything in my scans and vital actions.
Just as an example ... the pre-landing checklist had an item that prompted consideration of airfield elevation, density height and surface condition. Pretty important on a 25-sector day into lots of different places at different elevations and different types of landing surface, slope, yada yada yada. My shortest flight time between take-off and landing was about 3 minutes and I STILL managed to get thru all the checks in the list.
It's a matter of managing your aeroplane, your flight and your safety!
And what about the days when you had to step from one aircraft type to another? Dunno about you, mate, but I always needed a few minutes to adjust my thinking to a different type of engine and systems management. The checklist was a great way to do that.
Is this reality coming back to you yet? It's been a while since I had to do any of that "stooging around the hills" sh!t. If I had to climb back into a C206 or the like right now, I'd be grateful for the checklist.
And now to the other point you so conveniently ignored about flying around the bush strips in PNG. You had a training pilot with you for quite a while at first, then you were checked on the various routes and into the various strips. While this was (and remains) a legal requirement, the operators have a vested interest in it too.
This is because, while one prang a year is good for the insurance payout and a day (at most) of bad publicity, a second prang in the same year invites scrutiny of the worst kind. No operator wants that coz they start losing money in a situation where they run a business that's intended to make money.
So they want their flights to be as safe as possible too. That attitude is even more evident these days than it ever used to be -- and that is a good thing.
Checklists and airmanship, airmanship and checklists. It's all the same to me and always has been. You teach it to students from the outset and you end up saving lives and keeping your employer in business. By keeping him in business, you keep yourself in work.
And, even now, I've barely addressed the pilots who don't fly as regularly as the rest of us. But, then, I reckon enough has already been by others about that and I will simply endorse their views. Have a great day in your 737 mate.
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Once a king, always a king.
But once a nite's barely adequate!
[This message has been edited by OzExpat (edited 24 March 2001).]