In article ,
M B wrote:

I despise long checklists. The chance of landing with
the gear UP is directly proportional to the length
of the checklist followed. The more checklist items
you follow, the less time spent doing something important.

Here in New Zealand the standard pre-landing checklist is Straps,
Undercarriage, Flaps, Brakes, which is pretty short.

You could argue that Straps is unnecessary, but I think it proabbly is a
good reminder that in some of the conditions we fly in it can get a lot
bumpier as you drop below 1000 ft or so. But the big reason to tighten
straps is in case of a sudden stop, right?

I've never quite known what to do for flaps at that point. No problem
if you don't have them of course, but in the one flapped ship I fly,
landing flap is about half as effective as the airbrakes (i.e. about 1/3
of the total drag available) and I do not generally want to have that
deployed all the way along downwind unless I'm worried about possible
1000+ fpm sink in the circuit and starting high and doing a Stuka
circuit. So I just make a plan (and announce if it there's someone in
the back seat) which is generally along the lines of "I'll fly clean (or
in +6) until on base (or turning final), when I'll put in landing flap.

Brakes: just open and close them to make sure they deploy and are
symmetrical. If they're not going to deploy (whether for mechanical
fault or due to icing) then best to find out before you're on finals.
Conversely, if they're not going to close properly after you test them
then best to be somewhere where you can get to the airfield with full
brake. Which argues for this being a downwind check rather than
something you might do too much earlier.


A very real exception, however, is the airspeed. Might
be a useful item for those who fly a lot of different
aircraft, or at different weights. But even then it
***might*** be ignored if the runway is long enough


I can understand how pilots of powered aircraft might have trouble with
speed, since they generally have to slow down to speeds they'd never
otherwise use. But it seems to me that most gliders should be
approached at a little bit over min sink in calm conditions, to a little
bit over best L/D when it's blowing and those are speeds and attitudes
and stick positions that you're going to know very well.


Takeoff checklist seems to be another matter entirely.
I look carefully through the fatal accident reports
and prioritize my checklist by what killed the most
pilots in type. Do THAT stuff at the beginnning AND
the end of the checklist...

Right. There can be a lot of thngs that might prevent a sucessful
transition from not-flying to flying. Switching from flying to
not-flying is pretty fail-safe as long as you don't do it by hitting
something or stopping flying while too high off the ground.

--
Bruce | 41.1670S | \ spoken | -+-
Hoult | 174.8263E | /\ here. | ----------O----------