This week on Behind the Prop we discuss checklist usage, the good, bad, and ugly. Make sure you are using a good checklist that you understand!
Checklist usage sounds simple. #1 - Use one. #2 - Follow it. It continues to be one thing that pilots don't do frequently enough and causes problems, both big and small. Wally shares some things that he sees on check rides (even applicants reading them upside down), and Bobby shares a lot of what he sees around the flight school. Please share this episode with other pilots and fly safe!
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Welcome to behind the prop podcast where each week. We will bring you stories lessons and some tips from behind the prop. Please subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts pre show checklist microphones, check out check complete recording all channels checked and verified pre-show checklist complete tower Bravo. Tango papa is holding short ready for departure Bravo Tango Papa, you are clear for takeoff. Have a great show your clear for takeoff and Wilco Bravo Tango Papa. What's up, Wally? Hey Bobby. How are you? I'm good. Here we are this is episode 2 and why we're still in our infancy. I know we've got a lot of great shows lined up and a lot of great content that want to share with the listeners. Today, we are tackling what I call as a big one is we're talking about checklists usage, Wally have you ever seen someone make a mistake with a checklist on a check ride. How many times how many check rides have I've given by the four hundred or so umm probably that many mistakes. Probably the most common mistake in checklist is not using a checklist using it and if you if you read the ACS. For for sure for every Landing one of the skills elements is proper use of checklists. So if you're not using a checklist, how can that be proper use? No doubt. No doubt So today, we're going to break it down into kind of three topic areas and we were joking before we started we could talk probably for hours about checklist usage and check list on general but we're going to talk a little bit about usage first kind of which ones there's a lot of third parties out there that have made stuff in the Advent of electronic flight bags. We've seen ForeF light and there's a lot of starting points, but I'm afraid I've seen some people maybe use what comes as a good starting point for a Cessna 172 but miss a number of extra components on that that that are important to their aircraft then we're going to talk a little bit about common mistakes and then we'll talk best practices and we'll wrap up the show. Sounds good. So let's talk about these things. I I'm a flight school owner here in Houston, and we have a pilot Supply. We sell checklists that we've made really just to make the cost recovery of the lamination that we done. We also have some Checkmate checklists up there which I'm sure many people have heard about but it's a third party company that's done their best to put together a list of things. You should do in a bonanza or a Cessna or a travel air or whatever. You might be flying and I as a tech guy have recreated almost every check list for every plane I've ever flown in a format that I like to use and maybe made a mistake by forgetting something that's that's a risk right any other ideas or thoughts that you've seen with checklists. We talked ForeFlight to I guess that's a whole whole other one right like all the electronic. Yeah some tools. Yeah, the the the thing I would say if you're going to use an other than POH checklist, which is permissible is to just really make sure that it it matches that checklist. Now a lot of the POH checklists will have references to equipment that you may not have on the airplane for instance air conditioner or autopilot. And you may not have that your airplane. So does it make sense to create your own and remove those and and declutter things kind of clean things up? Yeah, I would say it does but just be make it just make sure that the the the things that on on the POH checklist are on your checklist the ones that need to be there and don't if you're going to go to a an FBO or a flight school and rent an airplane. Don't just assume make sure yeah sure that they're correct. I would not just trust my checklist if I was an outside and I walked in here I would definitely be doing some thorough investigating and then there's some safety tips that you might add right that there's nothing wrong with creating your own checklist and adding a few extra things, right? I can remember I used to before ForeFlight did it automatically for you. I used to have start my long track log on my ForeFlight before I left my run-up position because I didn't want to be doing it on the go of course, but it was something I didn't want to forget to do so nothing wrong with adding "S tart ForeF light" as a checklist item on your check list. Right, I I I do some things in my airplanes. I own two airplanes and one thing I have on my parking checklist is to Squawk 1200. If I'm on a a flight plan where I have a squawk code in there, I want to go to 1200 there because the next flight when I go out if I look over there if I know I'm on an IFR flight plan.
00:05:04 - 00:10:00
I look over there. I see 1200. I know that's not the right Squawk code. So that's that's something that that I have added to mine. Like, you know we talked about, yeah good best practices for sure what I'm sure you've seen many different versions of or flavors of but let's just Check Mate as an example not an endorsement and not a negative comment. But have you seen holes in their things? Have you seen things that people might misinterpret have you worried about maybe the usage of a checklist like that. I have and and one of the You know, when when I do check rides I am going to we're going to incorporate the system's portion of the of the oral within the context of talking about a flight. And so I am as per the the ACS. I'm required to talk about three different systems. And so one of the systems that I occasionally talk about is the electrical system. So we will talk about an electrical system failure or basically an alternator failure which possibly could lead to an electrical system failure. And if you read the Checkmate checklist, it basically tells you if we cannot restore the alternator it says to land ASAP and I think most of us would when we we hear ASAP. We think it means as soon as possible if you go into the Cessna checklist the 172 checklist within the POH it says land as soon as practical And that's that's quite a bit of difference. You could make the argument that you're if you're Thirty miles from your destination. That's probably about 15 or 20 minutes in a Cessna 172. Is it practical to continue on to your destination when when you're right on top of a potential diversion airport and it could be I can't say diverting to the airport that you're right on top of which would be the wrong thing either as long as the airport is open and safe and and suitable for you. But when I hear ASAP if I got a text from somebody that said call me ASAP, I would really stop what I'm doing and call them right right away. If I got a text from somebody that said call me as soon as practical I'd probably wait till I'm finished doing what I'm doing. So that is I don't know what checkmate intended. I don't know if they intended for it to say if it was if they meant it to say as soon as practical and and decided to save a line of text and and put it as ASAP. I don't know. Yeah, that's another point that I would say. Sometimes I don't necessarily understand every abbreviation on someone else's checklist. Whether it's Checkmate own not people have their own shorthand their own abbreviation. We have a twin that we use to train in a lot and someone made a magnificent looking checklist. I mean it was as sexy as a checklist can be sexy it was sexy but it was so much shorthand on it. The twins complicated for a guy who's only flown single engines his whole whole Aviation career add on top of it. All these shortened words that I might not understand. I didn't want to incorporate that as bad as I wanted that checklist to work for me. I just couldn't make it work because there were more acronyms than the normal acronyms on the checklist and had to forego it and then ultimately create my own from the poh and then add some of the steps that I thought. I wanted to do instead I think in the in that the original poh kind of had you checked all the lights and then get back in the cockpit for something and then go check the stall warning. Well might have not been an electric stall warning when they first built the plane, but now it's got an electric stall on it. So makes sense to put that in the light walk around and check so you can tap up on it and hear the horn and it it's kind of out of place. Right? Right, that's not bad or wrong to change things if they're practically making sense. As long as you check all the items you need to check. Right? Right, right. I I began a airline career as a second officer on a Boeing 727 which is a 3 pilot airplane. And so the Second Officer on that airplane was basically the systems guy and he was also basically the the checklist the guy who ran all the checklist where there'd be normal or non-normal checklists . So and I I actually taught on that airplane. I was a Check Airman and a an aircrew program designee on on the 727 for for several years.
00:10:01 - 00:15:02
So I've got a lot of experience on that airplane and I I got to dive into checklist philosophies and what and and and basically how to run a checklist and what I learned and I I'm I continue to learn this today. Is that sometimes when we are reading a checklist that we are unfamiliar with which is typically a non normal checklist something that we don't really use every day that we have difficulty reading the checklist. It's conceptually it's something. It's pretty simple read the checklist read every word on the checklist. Don't add any words and don't skip any words and and it I use the comparison of paying your electric bill if you get electric bill for $247.18. You send them $247.18. You don't send them $250. You don't send them $240 you pay him exactly what they ask for. So when we read a checklist we run want to read every word and we don't want to add any words and here's the point. So if you have the left side of the checklist say it says " Landing light" and the right side says "On" well Landing light is basically the subject of the sentence and on is the verb of the sentence. So you would say Landing light on and then you'd reach over you turn the landing light on if we take one word. And that word is is and we put it in the middle of Landing light and on it changes the whole meaning of the sentence. I say Landing light is on while I don't have to do anything then so it sounds like a very very, I don't know. Maybe I'm doing some wordsmithing here, but just read the checklist don't add words don't take words away and especially if there are notes read the notes because the notes may say, you know, they may give you conditions. Well, hey if you're in oh, I don't know in bigger airplanes. If you're in icing conditions, don't do this step for whatever reason. Yeah, and I think I think as a as a guy who flies my family and friends around I probably don't use checklist enough. I have got fixated on on a single aircraft that I fly 90% of the time I find myself using checklists more in the ones that I don't fly regularly. But I think it's a practice that we should all use the checklist more than not and use make sure we're using one that we know verifies everything that's in the poh . What about we've talked about a few of these but common mistakes. So I would say on a check ride while you probably see people at their best more often than not meaning I'm taking my private with Wally today. I'm walking around that plane. I've got that checklist in my hand. I see you standing over there at the wingtip watching me walk around and I'm like a sump wing and I say it out loud and I check it on the checklist with a dry erase marker and I sump the wing and I'd look to see if you saw me do all those things right? You're seeing me at my best . Yeah. What do you think happens that next day when, me, takes my friend and I go flying. Yeah. Yeah, and I I tell people I tell my applicants I want you to do this the way you're going to do this tomorrow when you take your family on an airplane ride, and you know, this is a really really a good example of it. Let's face it if we're in a Cessna 172 say especially if it's a fuel injected 172. There's not a whole lot to The Landing Landing checklist, maybe mixture. Maybe maybe Landing light, flaps. Maybe there's not a whole lot to it. But what I what I'm explaining to the applicant, is that pretty quickly they're going to outgrow the 172 and a year down the road. They're going to be flying a bonanza. Well a bonanza has a lot more things to it. It's got cowl flaps. It's got prop a controllable pitch prop and most importantly it's got wheels that go up and down and you don't want to forget that you don't want to forget that that makes for a a very rough Landing. So it's just a habit pattern, you know, even even with the airline. I mean are the airplane I've fly there are three things on the landing checklist, and I know what they are, but we still pull out the card and we read read them every time.
00:15:03 - 00:20:03
Yep. That's that's a that a common mistake that I had early on was you talked about reading earlier? I think I wanted to be fast and I'm sure you've seen this. I'm sure people try to impress you on every check ride in some form or another and I think I tried to be quick, you know, and maybe during the run-up I'm quick and my my instructor would obviously did you get all of them and normally if your instructor or a DPE says that Right, I can assure you you haven't got all of them. So I found myself, you know, almost skipping stigmatism almost jumping over these line items, which is important, but I think I think as I now have the opportunity to fly with people that are rated Pilots as well. Obviously, you see a lot of mistakes. You have a different view than you normally would and they're doing all the hard work. You can just pick pick them apart. I think common mistakes that I see is a lot of it's not really pretending that they're doing the work but they skim over the word right? I see on when I fly with people I flown with some see if I can it at or trying to teach and they're they're going through the motions and they show they go through like this flow with checklist, but they don't really look to see if things are are really done. They say them they point but they might not really verify have you seen that in your in your tenure where people do that? .Y eah all the time and primarily where I see it is in light switches. It may say Landing light on and they reached down and they they they confirmed that a switch is in the on position, but it might actually be the beacon or the nav lights and I think you see this, you know primarily in in people that are out flying at flight schools where every airplane is not exactly configured exactly the same but I do see that quite a bit. And again, I I've watched many applicants. Read a checklist with it upside down and and I'll usually make a little bit of a sarcastic comment to them about that and then they they they flip it over and and now we're right side up at this point. So obviously it's pretty obvious when they're they're holding the checklist and it's upside down that they're not really using it that they're trying to put on a show show for me . That's it's just a bad habit and and I get it I know on on most of these airplanes there's just not a whole lot on the checklists, but we're not we're not teaching them to the fly a PA28 or a Cessna 172. We're we're trying to you know, we're trying to teach them correct habit patterns again as we talk about this one as a flight school owner one of my biggest pet peeves because windshields aren't cheap to replace and they craze and just don't like taking a plane out of service but a lot of my planes are sitting probably out there on the Tarmac right now Wally with a check list crammed down in the side of the the windshield. What would a professional pilot if if a 8 and 1/2 by eleven sheet of paper was found walking your view from my side to your side. What would what would you tell that pilot to do with that checklist? Yeah. I tell him to get it out of there. And and I I see that a lot with with people bringing their own iPad mounts. Yo right on the left side and I'm thinking boy, we just taken out about 20% of your your forward visual ability, but they're thinking but Wiley, how am I going to see my iPad if I don't I know exactly you want to see what's in front of you and they want to see ForeFlight and that magenta line. Exactly. Yeah. I want to see the airplane by looking at it and seeing out the window and they wanted a little blip on on the on the iPad. Yes. Well, that's a I think we're talking common mistakes cramming it in the side of the windshield and creating a blind spot for both the pilot and maybe a passenger That they could be using as a crew member even in a light GA aircraft is it's a big problem and then the iPads even worse if you use your iPad as a checklist off putting it on the window right in front of where you're looking is terrible. And and I I I stopped CFIs that are training people when I see someone taxing with a big iPad the big iPad mounted on the windshield kind of in the corner as you said, it's 20% of viewable viewable area, right? I don't care how proficient they are. They're not going to be able move move a Cessna out of the way of a jet that they didn't see right we got to get those get those mistakes cleaned up as it relates to usage with checklist. I guess now best practices some best practices with checklists usage might not sound like the the coolest thing in the world, but it may really save your life one day.
00:20:03 - 00:25:12
I become a big fan of a tri-fold checklist something that's in my kneeboard something that I can have really accessible in a multiple places . Console in my in the bag not crammed in the window but in the bag of the pouch of the door, but most preferably on my leg that I have quick access to it. As you said there's not a whole lot of steps some of them have acronyms but we should be verifying what the checklist even if we do a flow. Yeah, and and I what I I try to I'm when I'm instructing what I teach my students to is is when you're studying when you're when you're looking at the poh something that's very worthwhile to study or or to familiarize yourself with it would be a better word or phrase is is the table of contents of each section. What is in the poh what checklist do I have available to me? For instance? I getting back to the electrical system failure. I will occasionally say to an applicant. Okay, if we are flying along we are right here and I'll point to where we are on the sectional and I will say you have an indication of an alternator failure. What are you going to do? And really what I want to hear from them is I'm going to pull out the check list and I'd say in eighty-five ninety percent. They start going through procedures. Some of them will say I'm going to divert right away find a place to land in something that they practiced exactly. Yeah. Now the checklist and most airplanes will have you go through a little bit of a reset procedure and you might get that alternator back so you don't have it happens all the time when you're flying fourteen planes at that location . Yeah day in day out all the time you'd be surprised how many times that alternator does come back? Yeah, and and the the example I will use to them. I will say Okay. So let's say you choose to divert and you said you go land and you go land at this airport that isn't where you're supposed to go and you get there and they've got no mechanic there no maintenance there. What are you going to do and they say well, I don't know I said well you're at some point. You're going to make the awkward call to the flight school owner. Right and they say yeah, and I said so what are you going to what are you going to say when I call them and they will say well I'm going to tell them that I diverted to XYZ airport because I lost the the alternator and the flight school owner is going to say to you. Did you ad here to the poh procedure? And what are you going to say? And they get this look of oh no, whoops. So again and and then I will I will also give an applicant scenarios of that. They relate to the systems that we might not not have a checklist . And obviously that's that's a time where we we do have to improvise. I mean, I'll maybe talk about a fuel leak most of these small airplanes. There's nothing in in the poh that addresses a fuel leak . Well, we'll talk about how how might you handle a fuel leak. And obviously that that's a scenario where you're going to have to improvise and you're going to have to logically think through things. And you know what you're going to do with that fuel selector and so forth. Yep. Another best practice that I I have seen is is the the ease of use of a checklist. So to use the poh, we're not going to all walk around with a notebook that's in some cases fifty years old in in our kneeboard that we're going to open up but in the same respect using that poh pdf version on a knee board is probably not very good either there's a lot of electronic options for clicking through but I find best literally nothing better than a really big fonted check list that I can see and and go through step by step as you said not adding a bunch of words. I see people that rewrite their own checklist that almost re authored the Poh the procedures so many words so many paragraphs that can't be useful and then like the example I said that so many acronyms might not be useful either, but some somewhere in between as a now forty seven year old man, who's losing his eyes a little more everyday the bigger the better in my opinion and I think the old me the the 44 year-old me three years ago. That could see I might have tried to make that thing as small as could could for Simplicity sake for for storage sake right and that's not a best practice as it relates to using checklists right make it as big as you can feasibly store and use and see so that you can get through it for sure.
00:25:12 - 00:28:25
Yeah about I guess one thing I've learned is I finish my commercial multi recently. What are your thoughts on a maybe not doing a check ride, but let's say you you fly somewhere with one of your daughters. What's the what's your expectation of them using you as a crew resource to help with things like a check list. As far as the check list, I I you know, I would expect them to use the checklist now if we're in an abnormal situation, I would I would definitely Expect them to use me. I actually had a situation. We got a Saratoga and we had an electrical system failure in it. And what was the first thing you did fly the airplane and then you grab the checklist? Yeah. Yeah, and you know, of course it involved a manual gear extension. I had my youngest daughter in left left seat. I was in the right seat and my oldest daughter and wife were in the back of the airplane and my oldest daughter and I we she was reading the manual gear extension checklist have my youngest daughter again in the left seat who at the time was a student pilot. She was flying the airplane and I had my wife calling the local airport to get someone to come out to verify that the gear was down as we flew by so all four of us were involved in in in, the abnormal situation and if I'd have been by myself and it a a clear blue day. There was not a cloud in the sky beautiful weather. But if I may have been by myself, it would have been it would have been a challenge. Yes. I was saying depending on the situation A best practice might be to use someone else. Yeah, no matter what the circumstances no matter what the phase of flight if you feel overwhelmed and you have someone that can help ask for help absolutely use the crew resources that are available to you and don't try to to make it work because they you think a better pilot could do it on their own ask for help. There's probably a million more best practices that we can relate to but the biggest one of all is to use a checklist don't get caught in an aircraft without a checklist for sure and make sure that that check list encompasses all the the items on the poh. We have a lot of more good shows coming Wally anything to wrap with today. No, no, we thank you all for listening to Behind The Prop. Hopefully you're enjoying these lessons and stories from behind the prop until next week. That's the show. Bravo Tango Papa, we are clear the active Runway and would like to taxi to park Bravo Tango Papa taxi to parking great show. Have a nice day. Taxi to park. Thanks you to Bravo Tango Papa . Thanks for listening to Behind The Prop please follow us on social media @BehindTheProp or visit our website at www. Behind the prop.com until next week. Fly safe everyone.