Your company Airbus checklist variations

[Smooth Airperator]

A previous operator had no checklists in the air. No After Takeoff/Climb checklist and no Approach checklist. The Landing checklist was 2 items from memory and the After Landing checklist was completely silent. I think the logic was to concentrate on flying because with ATC interruptions and busy airspace, checklists might be the cause of errors instead of being helpful in catching them out (controversial I agree).

I don't ever recall an incident where any item was missed as a result of the above variation. The SOP worked very well and we relied on flows and monitoring of each other to do the job. Critical mistakes would always be caught by the system (The Third Monitor). The Before Start checklist was also abbreviated and I recall the ADIRS check being removed. It would be interesting to see how your company has varied the Airbus (narrowbody) checklist too.

Also, are there any items in any of the checklists which appear superfluous to you as a pilot? and that can be easily caught by ECAM alerts/messages on the PFD/ND?

Thanks

[MCDU2]

Surgeons used to do checks by memory as well until they kept on leaving bits and pieces inside their patients. Now they use checklists to trap any errors and base their methodologies from us mere pilots.

[pineteam]

I beleive some checklist like the after take off climb, approach and landing checklist are pretty useless on Airbus. After all, as long as you have flaps and gears you are good to go. And those 2 important items are monitored by ECAM.

[FlightDetent]

Never seen an OEM checklist item removed, and passed many of them around sim centers. Over here it would be a really steep uphill battle anyway, as the aircraft comes certified out-of-the box with AFM, and QRH with the Check-list in it. So alternate means of compliance on the EU level would need to be filed by the operator.

The other topic of check-list items being added: I suggest we censor ourselves on this one so not to give anyone ideas.

[Check Airman]

Items removed

Previous company used the OEM checklist. Current cumpany knows better. For example, on the landing checklist they removed an item, and added a few more. Now we have 5 items. Maybe a record for the longest landing checklist.

[Denti]

With a previous airline we had company SOPs for the bus and basically no checklist between After Start and Parking. No FMA calls except altitudes either. At one point there was a switch to pure OEM procedures which, no surprise, was not very welcome in the pilot community and a huge change for many. The silent cockpit philosophy worked very well, but relied on good training and an average experience of 7000+ hours for FOs and 15.000+ for captains. And yes, all in EASA country. Oh, why the switch to OEM? Simple, it's all about the money. Company SOPs in airbus FCOMs for over 30 slightly different equipment levels simply cost a huge amount of money to airbus to keep the FCOMs up to date.

[Check Airman]

Very few of the FO's in my company have under 7000hrs. We still have superfluous checklist items. Items which are monitored by the ECAM.

[FlightDetent]

Denti: guess you had silent cockpit / reduced checklist well before EASA, and decades of experience by the time they pressed the first stamp to paper.

On a side note, same topic of manuals and cost cutting however: I do not like the details being polished out of the A320 OEM FCOM/FCTM, as had been happening over the last three years.

[Capn Bloggs]

Originally Posted by Flight Detent

I do not like the details being polished out of the A320 OEM FCOM/FCTM, as had been happening over the last three years.

"You don't need to know".

[vilas]

In B707 days even abnormal procedures were done by memory. Manufacturers changed to check lists for a good reason. Doing things by memory opens a possibility of forgetting or committing an error. Pilots in airline come from different backgrounds and environments or have switched to different make. Sometimes an airline has different variants of the same aircraft in which things are done differently. So use of check list is an accepted practice. The manufacturer builds an aircraft on a design philosophy and it's safer to follow their procedures. Due to some specific regional or operational pecularity sometimes a few things may have to be done differently but even those changes should be incorporated after consultation with the manufacturer.

[Denti]

Originally Posted by TangoAlphad

I must admit i’m Not sure which philosophy I like best.. I went from a read and do on everything to the flow then check methodology on the Boeing which I like. There are a few checks however I wouldn’t mind going away.

The point that interested me however was about the hours of the crew. More and more these days checklists and SOP’s appear to be designed for the lowest common denominator in the cockpit. 200 hr cadets out of flight school which is becoming more and more common in EU airlines, both LOCO and legacy. While it would be lovely to design SOP and flows for such experienced crew I am not sure which airlines left are able to plan on that.

On the Boeing we pretty much used OEM procedures as far as i know, flow/area of responsibility and then check. A tad more quiet than boeing wanted, but still around 95% of the OEM stuff.

Well, the high hours was mostly caused by shrinking instead of growing, and yes, we still took in cadets from our own flight school with roughly 100 hours on real planes (MPL) and around 200 hours in simulators. In general surprisingly good pilots despite the low hours. Of course it did help that manual flight/thrust and no flight director was actively encouraged and routinely done in normal line operation, and of course it was mandatory during line training at some point.

[Cak]

I worked for the operator without ‘checklists in the air’ and it worked fine most of the time. But After take-off/climb CL is the only place which forces you to check gear and it happened few times that crew forgot to retract the gear after take-off due ATC or some other interuption. ECAM or FWC computer will not give any warning regarding that.
There was a case some 2 years ago in Vietnam where 3 guys were in the cockpit and they didn’t realize for 1:10h that they forgot to retract the gear. They returned to departure airport as they burned too much fuel for the remainder of the flight
And they had OEM checklists ��

[RUMBEAR]

CAK you use an interesting example. I have thought for many years that while they are basically to ensure critical actions are not “forgotten”, the calling for the checklist itself is a memory item. Paper checklists in particular can be easily forgotten when interrupted at an inappropriate time. I’m surprised that electronic checklists integrated into EFIS are not standard with technology that is available today.

[FlightDetent]

Let's not forget that while they're called NORMAL c/l, in fact, they are used during abnormal and emergency situations as well.

In my opinion, the no-C/L methods are not quite honest about themselves. Yes, it is true, nobody needs a paper C/L for Line-check day on Saturday in the middle of May, leaving 9:15 local from Stuttgart to Rhodos and back. But we do need a C/L and good discipline with it on those days like 20 AUG 2008. And many similar others.

It could be very easy to stitch SOPs for a nice day with no threats. But that is not the point of having a set, is it. All fair and square, it is not the world's hardest job to design good ones either. Even those that work after MEL is applied, the ones the pilots enjoy holding on to when their life starts to depend on applying them.

No, the hardest job is to convince pilots that on a nice day there is still need to follow the protocol and execute the C/L diligently - even if it brings no visible benefit.