On Mar 25, 4:44*pm, Burt Compton - Marfa wrote:
I learned from Karl Striedeck that you should have a post-flight
checklist that includes items to take out of the sailplane including
wallet, batteries, logger, maps, turnpoint data, water, food (no
mice!), reading glasses, pee thang, etc.
Add any special rigging tools and pins that you want back into the
fuselage, not left on the ground after an off-airport retrieve, in the
dark, in the rain.
You can add more -- some are especially important if you de-rig every
night.
Digging wallet out of the fuselage inside trailer in the dark, or in
the rain . . . been there.

Agree - I have a written checklist for pre and post flight items.
Leaving a parachute or battery at home is very inconvenient. Being on
the contest grid without the task sheet or chart similarly so.

However I have never used a written checklist, or action list, for
takeoff or landing in a glider. The check list goes away before I get
in and does not come out again until I'm back at the trailer.

No doubt people miss required actions when under pressure, but does a
checklist help in single pilot operations? Crews of military aircraft
and of large civil transport aircraft are required to memorize the
required response for all situations requiring immediate action. Only
after the sequence has been executed is it confirmed by use of a
checklist. Even routine tasks such as cockpit preparation are
performed without a check list, typically using a "flow" technique.
Only when it is all done is the the checklist used for confirmation.

I'm still capable of remembering a mnemonic action list long enough to
cover a glider pre-takeoff or landing check. When I can't remember
the list I'll probably be too old, fatigued, dehydrated, or scared to
remember to get the checklist out.

Andy