willbav8r, are you still with the school that had those crummy aircraft? If so, you are mucho brave. I legged it from my first flying school for various reasons, but one of them was the parlous state of the aircraft. Even allowing for student paranoia, far too many things camee off in my hands as soon as I got near the beasts. Of course these days I use that splendid checklist menmonic FTCLG.