Turning on nav. lights in broad daylight is detremintal to safety, because when some poor bas.ard wants to fly the thing at night the lights may be burnt out.
I never could understand the stupidity of acting like sheep and turning on lights in bright sunlight that requires you to put your hand over the light to see if it is really on. Nav lights are for flying in reduced ambient light conditions...such as at night.
SOP's work just fine in the airline enviorement due to the simple fact that there must be conformity between crews or there would be chaos in some cockpits.
I remember getting in a Twin Otter one day in Vancouver making a connecting flight to get back to Vancouver Island... I was sitting right behind the cockpit door and watched the crew go through their SOP to get the beast woke up and mobile enough to fly the 32 miles to Nanaimo.
Every fu.king switch that was within reach was selected to the on position including landing lights and the pitot heat...remember the thing is still parked safely on the ramp in front of the terminal buliding....
When we landed in Nanaimo I asked the left seat monkey why he turned on the pitot heat on the ramp on a hot summer day..it was about 30 degrees C.
His answer was that is SOP's for our company and the chief pilot demands we conform to SOP's..
I rest my case.
Chuck