PM
Which end of the headset are you on. The checks are read out for a reason, not just for the sake of it. For starters, most aircraft that have a FDR stores it for a while in case of an incident. And secondly, you shouldnt be doing a headset if you cant carry out hand signals. What happens in a thunder storm, would you just sit there until its passed. Ive given INTERNATIONAL hand signals to flight deck before to let them know the chocks are in, and they look up to see if the FEGP is connected...?? From my experience, the ground crews hand signals are far better than most poilots nowadays.