Originally Posted by Lowdown
The Cessna checklist posted ... is preparation for a crash
Precisely. Put yourself in that mind-set, guess what'll happen? That's the problem I have with the checklist.
Like you, I have had to do many low-level inspections of impromptu landing sites, including beaches, paddocks, "strips", lakes, rivers, harbours, bays, ocean waterways and other less formal areas. The advice you offer is excellent. To my way of thinking a precautionary landing is conducted
well before it becomes a "do it now or crash very soon" scenario, which implies that the pilot will have time and opportunity to find and properly assess a precautionary landing site, which of itself
should (read:
must) preclude the necessity of conducting a pre-landing checklist that is "preparation for a crash".
As others have intimated, this is an airborne exercise taught by rote, in slavish adherence to a checklist 1st published 40-60 years ago which was probably quite appropriate to conditions then -not necessarily now. Just no one has bothered to actually evaluate the checklist and update it to reflect more relevant conditions or scenarios. Of far more importance IMO would be teaching pilot candidates to properly recognise when and where the conditions and need for a precautionary landing may soon exist and then to act appropriately in those conditions.