Possible Dangers of Memory Flying

Jaybird180

Jaybird180

Final Approach
Joined
Dec 28, 2010
Messages
9,034
Location
Near DC
Display Name
Display name:
Jaybird180
Just got off an invigorating conversation and the subject of checklist usage came up. Got me asking the question:
What are the risks of performing Climb, Cruise (enroute), Descent and landing phases of flight while only using memory and flows? What risks are mitigated by using a checklist over a flow in these phases of flight? More to the point, I'm interested in accident cases where the use of a checklist could have broken the accident chain.
 
Someone has a YouTube channel in which they fly a two person crewed airplane with a box mounted on the top of the glareshield. As they complete a checklist item, they switch the lights on the box. Now granted this is an aircraft with a lot of checklist items to be completed and one of them is the "nut cracker". My landing checklist for example is only three items which are pretty easy to remember.
 
It depends - on a single seater non-complex plane, trying to pull out some kind of list in the pattern to identify and verify 1 or 2 trivial items seems like unnecessary distraction ..
 
Last edited:
Using checklist is important in all cases, but IMHO most important to do for all initial steps up through to pushing throttle in for take off.
 
Jaybird180 said:
Just got off an invigorating conversation and the subject of checklist usage came up. Got me asking the question:
What are the risks of performing Climb, Cruise (enroute), Descent and landing phases of flight while only using memory and flows? What risks are mitigated by using a checklist over a flow in these phases of flight? More to the point, I'm interested in accident cases where the use of a checklist could have broken the accident chain.
Click to expand...

As with everything, it depends.

What's on your checklist? I honestly haven't touched a checklist in 10+ years in the Comanche.
Climb checklist. Really? remembering to turn off fuel pump and adjust power needs a checklist?

Same for cruise, and descent.

Landing, the checklist is gear down, gear down, gear down, gear down. Everything you did during climb, undo.
 
I'm with @EdFred here. It's really hard to prove that you don't need something. Do you need a checklist to walk to the bathroom? (Step 1: stand and stabilize. 2: Plot course to facility 3. Confirm free and clear movement of feet 4. Make initial movement of feet in direction of travel while clearing intended walk-path........)

Do we use checklists to drive cars? Probably not but maybe when it wasn't second nature to you? I think airplanes are very similar. In many cases it takes a lot more attention to drive a car than safely operate an airplane. Have you been flying the same airplane for 10+ years and it feels like part of your body? I'd say you don't need a checklist for normal operations. New airplane? Sure New Pilot? Sure Rusty Pilot? Sure

I'm standing by for all the people calling me a heretic and damning me to grounding for life. Not to pick on the OP, but the way you asked the question lends itself to two answers: the one you agree with and the wrong answer. It's not really phrased as if you are asking, but trying to confirm your assumption/judgement.

Have you ever thought about a time when using a checklist might actually cause more harm? It's happened. As with most things - I say everything in moderation (including moderation).

Flame on.
 
Getting forced into a hurry or rush is when things are skipped, checklist or not in GA. Take a deep breath and slow down. Reading the chk list isn’t the same as doing the chk list.
 
Last edited:
Any of you guys ever flown with Snort? Drink cocktails with him? I have done a good bit of both. It's not like him to miss things; it's also not like him to ever admit he might need to slow down with a new plane that he's not used to. Knowing your blind spots and weaknesses is a special superpower that many pilots can't get ahold of; at times we are likely all that way to some extent.
 
EvilEagle said:
I'm with @EdFred here. It's really hard to prove that you don't need something. Do you need a checklist to walk to the bathroom? (Step 1: stand and stabilize. 2: Plot course to facility 3. Confirm free and clear movement of feet 4. Make initial movement of feet in direction of travel while clearing intended walk-path........)

Do we use checklists to drive cars? Probably not but maybe when it wasn't second nature to you? I think airplanes are very similar. In many cases it takes a lot more attention to drive a car than safely operate an airplane. Have you been flying the same airplane for 10+ years and it feels like part of your body? I'd say you don't need a checklist for normal operations. New airplane? Sure New Pilot? Sure Rusty Pilot? Sure

I'm standing by for all the people calling me a heretic and damning me to grounding for life. Not to pick on the OP, but the way you asked the question lends itself to two answers: the one you agree with and the wrong answer. It's not really phrased as if you are asking, but trying to confirm your assumption/judgement.

Have you ever thought about a time when using a checklist might actually cause more harm? It's happened. As with most things - I say everything in moderation (including moderation).

Flame on.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Early on sure, but once you've passed your private ride checklist items probably don't need to include:

DESCENT
Reduce throttle/RPM

Well no ****ing ****, Sherlock.

"I don't know Mr. NTSB guy, I just pointed the nose at the runway, while at full throttle and descended like that from cruise, and I can't figure out why I bounced it 4 times and tumbled it 6 times."

If you need a checklist to tell you to reduce throttle to descend, to add flaps to get the sight picture right on approach, or to adjust mixture when you climbed from 100MSL to 9500MSLmaybe you need to reconsider your avocation.
 
Yes - good to admit to ourselves that no one is perfect. For me, that’s another check mark for using the checklist. If Snort can get bit by not using one, then I would be an idiot to not use one.
 
I’ll admit I don’t use a checklist for cruise, decent, or landing. Can’t fault anyone who does however.
 
also, using a checklist is no guarantee you'd actually accomplish a task on it. even though that rectangular plastic licensey-type certificate thingy says I'm english proficient, it's still easy enough to glance over something or read it out loud robotically while not actually performing the task. knowing how to fly the plane is much more important.
 
Snort is a poor example of what I’m asking. That was a missed preflight item, correctable on the ground.
I think @EdFred knows what I mean: a checklist to reduce power, trim for cruise, call on radio…seems redundant and it’s better to be head out of the cockpit. But obviously someone thought it was a good idea to be pendantic with this stuff. I want to understand why.
 
WDD said:
Yes - good to admit to ourselves that no one is perfect. For me, that’s another check mark for using the checklist. If Snort can get bit by not using one, then I would be an idiot to not use one.
Click to expand...
To each their own. I take something different from the tragedy - 1) know your limits (and that we all have some) 2) New airplanes or new circumstances (he just picked it up from mx) require you to not be in a hurry no matter who you are.

I don't stop driving slightly over the speed limit because a friend of mine crashed while driving 57 in a 55 while texting.
 
Cruise, decent, climb are the "checklists" that bug me. Yeah I know I need to adjust the throttle, mixture and prop, I'm flying the damn plane I don't need to read that to confirm I did it, it's pretty obvious if it's wrong.
IMO once I'm in the air I need one checklist and that's GUMPS.
 
Mxfarm said:
and we know Snort didn’t use a checklist how? I have watched pilots read it off the chk list and move right on to the next item. Chk list is only a tool.
Click to expand...
On the crappy little 150 I train in, there are like three separate checklist items where I would have noticed that the control lock was still in. RIP, but dude must have been in a real hurry.
 
Mxfarm said:
and we know Snort didn’t use a checklist how? I have watched pilots read it off the chk list and move right on to the next item. Chk list is only a tool.
Click to expand...
Because it would have been caught.

Have engines been run to death because of failure to reduce power from climb to cruise? Probably someone has overspeed landing gear, I’ll buy that. I’d call these poor airmanship examples not checklist failure.
 
Jaybird180 said:
Snort is a poor example of what I’m asking. That was a missed preflight item, correctable on the ground.
I think @EdFred knows what I mean: a checklist to reduce power, trim for cruise, call on radio…seems redundant and it’s better to be head out of the cockpit. But obviously someone thought it was a good idea to be pendantic with this stuff. I want to understand why.
Click to expand...
I'm with you on that. As new pilots we're taught to use the checklist for everything under the sun. IMO, as PIC you are free to examine which checklists may be superfluous and curtail/change/delete as appropriate for safe and efficient conduct of flight.

In USAF UPT we were taught a ton of pneumonics to help us remember how to arrive at an airfield. You had to know at least one; preferably two of them. I couldn't remember any of them and finally just made myself learn WHOLDS (weather, holding, obtain clearance, letdown, decision height, speed) but I didn't really use it. There was NMAILMAN, WANTS and a host of others that people used as if (and because they thought) their life depended upon it. I did the same items but in my own internal checklist that wasn't written down or put into some catchy phrase.

Checklists and pneumonics are great if used correctly. They could also be a hindrance if used incorrectly or at the wrong time. My best guess is that they were good teaching techniques then we humans always take it up a notch and it became more and more formal over time. For some that's good.
 
Jay, agree that cruise, decent, landing checklists aren’t as useful as preflight checklist - for simple airplanes. The more compex it gets, perhaps the more useful. I’m glad 777 drivers use landing checklist.
 
A UK Navy Harrier pilot put on a flawless demo at P'cola NAS a while ago. Finished up with some fascinating hovering. Right up until he hovered to parking and set it down. With the wheels retracted. The crowd was silent.
A pal of mine once taxied for a running T.O. in a Sikorsky 76. Two pilot crew. After T.O. they found they had started only one of the engines
 
Proper use of checklists, rather than simply use of checklists, is important. My dad flew for most of his career without using checklists other than when there was a Fed in the right seat giving him a checkride.

I recall when I was learning to fly, he considered it very important to reset trim after landing. Turns out he took off once, needing both hands, and finally a knee, to keep the nose down so he could trim it to where it needed to be. Two undone checklists had Trim-SET on them.

I started out not using checklists, or just giving them cursory review, but realized that if I applied them with some systems knowledge and airmanship, all of the “bad checklist” issues went away.

I flew Hawkers with my dad for 13 years before he retired. When I started flying with him, there were no fewer than 3 places where “Altimeters Set” was written into the checklists before getting to the runway, and it was still being missed. I couldn’t convince anyone that “flight instruments” included altimeters, so when I had opportunity to rewrite the normal checklists for other reasons, I changed it to “flight instruments and Altimeters”, and no more NASA forms were filed that I’m aware of.

His use of checklists was pretty cursory, and fortunately my defense mechanisms that I developed over the years worked. We were cleared for takeoff with the control lock still installed twice. The second resulted in a pretty serious argument (which was suspended at V1 and resumed after we put the airplane to bed.) I think his business partner got hold of that one and convinced him that we were seeing more of those types of errors, because he suddenly got serious about using checklists, and the errors went away.
 
Overheating on climb-out due to not reducing power or adjusting cowl flaps? It's likely happened.
Excess drag due to leaving gear down or cowl flaps open in cruise? Absolutely has happened.
Fuel exhaustion due to not changing tanks properly/leaning out enroute? Yup, it's happened.
Burning out landing/taxi lights by leaving them on for the full flight? Makes mechanics a lot of money.
Overspeeding or flap damage due to deploying above Vfe? Happens.

Nothing wrong with using flows, and memory/common sense. Verify with the checklist.
 
Timbeck2 said:
My landing checklist for example is only three items which are pretty easy to remember.
Click to expand...


Yep.

When I was flying a Cherokee, the landing flow was basically thumb + two fingers: thumb moves the mixture forward while one finger moves the fuel pump switch and the other moves the landing light switch. Then confirm fullest tank.

My Beech is just as simple but the switch arrangement isn’t as convenient.
 
checklists are strictly for aviation youtubers to say "checklist usage edited out" so they don't get nasty comments from non-aviation people who threaten to call the FAA on them for not using checklists.
 
EvilEagle said:
I'm with you on that. As new pilots we're taught to use the checklist for everything under the sun. IMO, as PIC you are free to examine which checklists may be superfluous and curtail/change/delete as appropriate for safe and efficient conduct of flight.

In USAF UPT we were taught a ton of pneumonics to help us remember how to arrive at an airfield. You had to know at least one; preferably two of them. I couldn't remember any of them and finally just made myself learn WHOLDS (weather, holding, obtain clearance, letdown, decision height, speed) but I didn't really use it. There was NMAILMAN, WANTS and a host of others that people used as if (and because they thought) their life depended upon it. I did the same items but in my own internal checklist that wasn't written down or put into some catchy phrase.

Checklists and pneumonics are great if used correctly. They could also be a hindrance if used incorrectly or at the wrong time. My best guess is that they were good teaching techniques then we humans always take it up a notch and it became more and more formal over time. For some that's good.
Click to expand...

the mnemonics things and other memory aids NEVER work for me either. I think different brains are wired in different ways. My memory for things like that is very poor
 
Another thing that is very often poorly done in checklists is having items in poor locations. How many times have we come to a point that we have to say "hold until..." but then go on to finish out the other items on the list.
 
For relatively simple airplanes, the commercially available checklists are a bit ridiculously complex. That complexity leads to skipping or just reading off stuff without potentially doing it. Once you're at ~ 1k AGL, shut off the fuel pump. Higher up, adjust the mixture. Switch tanks once in a while. Landing - mixture and fuel pump on. The non-user friendly nature of the Checkmate list, discourages checklist usage. I'm in the process of creating my own, vastly simpler one in the hopes of using it more religiously. There's huge value in checklists in GA - just needs some human factor work to make them more valuable.
 
Think of all the crashes saved by having "fly the plane" on the checklist. There are school buses, driven by nuns, that are alive today thanks to #38.
 
Hang 4 said:
Think of all the crashes saved by having "fly the plane" on the checklist. There are school buses, driven by nuns, that are alive today thanks to #38.
Click to expand...
Is "Fly the plane" not needed during cruise and descent?
 
good thing there's a checklist item to "flip checklist" otherwise how would you ever know there was more on the other side?
 
the one after line item 37 catches my eye.

if a pilot needs to know that, well ..... never mind
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top