Originally Posted by
Speedwinner
I folks,
A training captain told me that Airbus wants to do the flight control check in the exact order as written in the fctm. Is there any reason why?
If that training captain claims that Airbus wants it that way, why didn't he (or she) give an explanation for it?
As a trainer, he should clarify this, since it is nowhere written in what order you have to do the flight control check. (The FCOM mentions the call-outs to be made, but to me that doesn't mean that it has to be in that order.)
Maybe that training captain knows more than us, or he's just making things up by wrongly interpreting the FCOM. (Like so many instructors at my company who, without reasoning, make up some procedure from what they have read somewhere. Common sense is becoming something rare in aviation.)
Personally, I'm in favor of doing it randomly for the reason already mentioned in this thread.
But in the 3 companies I've worked for, I've only seen 1 or 2 pilots doing it randomly. Probably because in all 3 companies there are instructors who tell everybody that it always has to be in the same order as mentioned in the FCOM.
A captain in the first company I've worked for, told me that he once performed the flight control check in a random order with an instructor in the right seat. The instructor started his "full up, full down, ..." routine without properly checking the deflection. He was surprised when the captain told him to try again and have a better look. Point proven!