Any checklist that requires a pilot, particularly single pilot, to go "heads down" checking items on the pedestal like pressurization and TCAS while taxying is a deficient checklist. In the video, this guy was fiddling around with his head down quite a bit. I was waiting for him to run off the taxiway.
It is easy enough to redesign the King Air checklist (any checklist for that matter)to incorporate all the essential stuff into before start and after start phases, i.e. before taxying, leaving only a couple of items to be done after run up or approaching the active runway.
Also, non killer items like lights and transponders etc can be safely omitted from the checklist and simply memorised as a scan, so maybe that's what this guy was doing. If you forget to select the transponder you get a 'please explain' from ATC these days, so by the time you have filed all the grovelling paperwork it is fairly certain that you will never forget it again. Ditto for cancelling SARwatch, though this appears on many checklists . For the memory-impaired, I suppose.
Light aircraft 'factory' checklists are sometimes written in a 'how to' format e.g. the details to start engines are there just to cover the manufacturer's arse if some owner pilot who flies 50 hours a year screws it up.
Last edited by Mach E Avelli; 16th Dec 2012 at 03:37.