On Saturday, February 15, 2014 10:03:26 AM UTC-5, son_of_flubber wrote:

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.

I disagree with having a checklist in the hand during assembly. Way too many people confuse "assembly" with "preflight" and it sounds like this guy is confused. Oops, he's a "top human factors expert", does that make me anti-authority? FWIW, I have post-assembly, pre-flight and pre-take of checklists. I use them all and I recommend this sequence to anyone.

The internet FUD (that's "Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt") fight gets tiresome.

Evan Ludeman / T8