I try to bear in mind the bad things that may potentially happen at any phase of flight, and act to mitigate them - this applies in the circuit as much as anywhere else. The exact actions depend on the type of aircraft being flown. In the circuit, I try to avoid the following;
1) Flying into someone else.
2) Gliding into the ground some distance from the runway.
3) Hitting the downwind hedge.
4) Hitting the runway in an expensive fashion.
5) Hitting the upwind hedge.
(1) involves looking out of the window. In the Pitts, this also involves rolling 20 degrees left and right to see round the comedy oversized interplane struts every few seconds. I don't feel the urge to do this in the Yak, because people would accuse me of flying like a gumby.
(2) involves engine and fuel management. I don't feel the urge to check the mixture control in the Yak, because there isn't one - nor the carb heat control in the Pitts, for the same reason. They both require fuel, although the former uses it hilariously quickly.
(3) involves flying a controlled, stable approach, ideally from a position where should my efforts at mitigating (2) are sub-standard, I can still arrive on the runway. Quietly.
(4) involves having the wheels meet the right spot on runway in as gentle a fashion as possible, and that the propellor doesn't meet the runway in any fashion at all. In the Yak, this involves looking at three green lights, and three indicator sticks, and then telling no-one in particular over the radio that I can see the three green lights. In the Pitts, it involves making sure I have my lucky underpants on. I don't tell anyone I'm looking at three green lights on final in the Pitts, because I can't see any. Partly because there aren't any fitted, but mostly because I've got my eyes shut.
(5) involves a bit of (4), but also being prepared to miss the runway completely and hoof round to have another go at it. In both cases, attempting to do so with a coarse prop is going to be tricky, and in the Yak attempting to do so with the cowl gills shut can cook the engine remarkably quickly. There are handy levers on both types to manage this. I don't pretend to check the cowl flaps on the Pitts, because there aren't any - and if there were, it would be a Model 12, and I wouldn't be sat here typing this - I'd still be out there, in the dark, in the seventh consecutive hour of a torque roll in the overhead. Laughing.
What I'm trying to say, in a round-about way, is that learning slightly dodgy-sounding and long-winded acronyms for checks is all well and good, but what you're really trying to achieve is avoiding (1)-(5) above. In different aircraft, there are different ways of going about it - so chanting checklist items about features your aircraft doesn't have isn't going to help much, but if it makes you happy, what the hell.
Last edited by eharding; 4th Dec 2007 at 19:11.