Another question about checklists - should they use numbers rather than bullet points? I find that if I keep looking back and forth from the aircraft to a list of bullet points, I'm liable to miss some. If the lists were numbered it may be easier to notice if you jump from point 9 to point 11 without passing through point 10.
I have been called much worse on other forums!!
Nil Illegitum Carborundum
...actually I had great hopes that this forum, moderated by my sensible and wise friend Peter, would be the very place where one could make a point about the value of the use of checklists without having to defend oneself against being called a self-righteous amateur.
Rest assured, it will not happen again, at least not by me, as I will kindly ask your sensible and wise friend Peter first thing tomorrow morning if he will be kind enough to remote me and my nasty postings from his forum.
Many happy landings Max
We are NOT doing this here
What Next, there is no need to leave. Nobody is suggesting you should and it looks like you have valuable contributions to make. You seem to believe in checklists and there was a suggestion in your post that you know better because of your level experience. I am quite sure you didn't actually mean to denigrate any of the other participants.
Meanwhile there is no need for Timothy (or anyone else) to drive home the point any more robustly than has already been done that others with just as much experience have a differing view point.
Given the nature of this particular discussion, posts from someone with absolutely no experience whatsoever are equally welcomed; after all there is probably no right or wrong answer and this question does raise issues around students and training.
That being said, this is a forum for robust discussion and if people don't like their view being questioned by others then they're probably better off elsewhere.
A long time ago, I was the least experienced pilot around. I have more experience than that now, but still lots to learn. Interestingly some of what I have to learn, I learn by watching very inexperienced pilots, whom I might fly with. What are they predisposed to do while flying. When I am testing and approving a modification or other system, I'm looking for what the newbie in the cockpit is going to miss or get wrong, and how to design around it. A well known twin diesel, which I helped to approve with gasoline engines got quite a few comments along these lines, during the approval process.
So, when I am required to draft Flight Manual Supplements and associated checklists, I give a lot of thought to what NEEDS to be there to be safe, what the pilot should know already, and what is un-necessary.
Consider the three words you see in a modern Flight Manual: Caution, Warning and Danger. Those words are very carefully chosen relative to each other, to convey the right amount of alarm, without conveying too much. Checklists should be created with similar care.
If something is to be, or not to be done in the aircraft, which is not type specific safety vital, it probably does not belong in the checklist, it belongs in an SOP. "Our policy is that our rental aircraft are not to be landed on PPR runways" has to be a policy that renters simply remember as a part of the privilege of the use of the aircraft. You don't need a pre-landing checklist item - "Confirm runway not PPR" - that'd be silly!
And, I shall drift the thread a bit... We have witnessed and learned, have we not? We don't NEED to be moderated, we're adults aren't we? Peter and David, lean back from the monitor, I'm sure participants will self moderate.....
Indeed. Chill out all. Time for peaceful co-existence.
Disagreements on technical matters are fine, but no personal attacks please.
Must admit I've become a fan of trying to work without C/Ls since that unpleasant it-had-to-happen-sometime day when I arrived at the aircraft and found the C/L missing. Um, ah, dither, blank stare...
There was a revelation, too, when I first started flying aeros. Checklist? Wozzat?! Nope, no C/Ls allowed, clean cockpit and all that...
I think my muscle memory has improved as a result, but I do keep a C/L with me at all times, just in case. I don't fly the same aircraft all the time, and I'm very aware that's a risk in itself.
@what next: I really enjoy the international flavour of this forum. Kudos to our posters who write so well in what is not their native language. Wünsche 'n schönen Tag... 
As I fly normally in a very open cockpit environment as a microlight pilot I find for me checklist is useful, but on the ground.
The aircraft is very simple and maintained, as are most permit aircraft, by the owner ,me, so I know the aircraft well. However with daily inspection and pre-flight checks I find a checklist a useful thing. The aircraft is built such that it can be easily de-rigged so at many points there are castle nuts secured by safety pins that with clumsy ground handling can become damaged or undone. So a thorough inspection seems a very, very good idea, I find a checklist helps a lot with this even though I know the aircraft well by ensuring that checks are done in a systematic fashion.
Once in the cockpit though, with its very simple systems, I find that acronyms serve me well. I use the same idea in the enclosed cockpit types that I fly as I find it less distracting than using a list.
In aircraft with more complex systems but maintained by a professional engineer I can see this way of doing things could well be reversed.
The lists that I do use however are copied from the POH but with additional items that I have found over the years to be appropriate.
So I believe, as in many things one rule cannot cover all
Do checklists have any 'official' status in the way that the POH does? As I understand it, a checklist is just a copy of the procedures in the POH and hence if you're following the checklist then you're following the POH. Presumably if you create a checklist that differs from the POH and use it, then you're not following the POH?
The safety recommendations from this accident report make interesting and rather chilling reading.
The safety recommendations from this accident report make interesting and rather chilling reading.
I think that they are sensible. Good checklists, especially emergency checklists, should be available, but that does not mandate their use.
