On Saturday, February 15, 2014 7:57:19 AM UTC-5, joesimmers wrote:

I have helped a lot of very experienced pilots assemble their gliders
over the last 15 years, the ones that had a "written" checklist in
their hands during assembly are less than 10%.


I agree, glider pilots neglect fundamental and simple to implement safety practices.

There is a difference between "common practice" and "aviation industry best practice". The "aviation industry best practice" is a written checklist.

A commercial operator who does not follow "best practices" and who has a fatality is going to be accused of negligence. That the operator was following common practice is not a good excuse.

I know of a top human factors expert, a guy who spent his life studying pilot errors. He goes one step further than written checklists when assembling his glider. His checklists are in laminated plastic sheets and he uses a dry erase marker to check off the steps as they are completed. I gather from that that he knows of people who have made assembly mistakes even when using a written checklist.