Section 4 After You Have Finished Gives You A Checklist: Fill & Download for Free

Wow….without knowing it, you risk opening a can of worms. There are two major categories of checklist use. I divide them into ““do and check,” and ““read and do.”I am a do and check guy, and man oh man…….put me together with a read and do guy, and it doesn’t work too well. From my perspective, the read and do guys tend to stop observing what is going on and tend to downplay systems knowledge. They follow the checklist and don’t touch anything until they have read it on the list first.The do and check guys, for example, during the systems check and start up procedures, will utilise a flow, moving from the right hand side of the overhead panel (or where-ever it is logical to start the flow, depending on the type) and move systematically from top to bottom, then right to left, taking a section of the panel at a time. Then when finished with the overhead panels, they move to the centre panels and do the same thing. When everything is finished, they run through the checklist ““have I forgotten anything.”The read and do guys, read each item and carry out the action. An extension of this is ““challenge and response,” so that not only do you read first, the other pilot then does the action and confirms back that it is done.I will give a couple examples of why I personally have chosen the do and check model. (Whilst ducking for incoming from the read and do proponents)One of the first items on our checklist before starting the APU is ““NAV lights on.” Now I was a little pedagogic with a new co-pilot who I knew came from the read and do side, having been to a flight school that empahasises this approach. I asked him to go out and check the nav lights were on. He came back, all concerned, because THEY WERE NOT ON. So this was the beginning of his conversion training. I told him they were not on, because they are not on the battery bus. So they won’t come on until the APU generator is on line. So I told him, that we were basically going to mentally move this item to after theAPU generator is selected on. He hated the very thought. But he could see that it was pointless to select the switch on, when nothing happened. I also told him my reason. The bulbs in the NAV lights, especially the tail, burn out much more frequently, when they get this surge,when theAPU generator is turned on. By moving the NAV lights on to after APU generator on, we extended the life of the bulbs 4 times.But this is against his grain of read and do.Also on our checklists, the flight controls and spoilers are checked after engine start. I have moved them to after APU start and following the check of the hydraulic system. Why? Because we arrive at the aircraft 2 hours before departure normally. Here we are, having coffee, chatting away, the passengers arrive, their baggage is on board, we are going to make our slot time for departure, we start the engines and ooppppppppsssssss, we have a problem with the ground spoiler not retracting.Wouldnt it be FAR better to check that at the start of the two hours and have a chance to get maintenance out and fix it, or if it cannot be fixed, get an alternate aircraft arranged or tell the passengers we will a little delayed while the engineers fix the spoiler. Please come an hour later and we’ll be ready for you.The flight plan can be amended, everything is cool. No, the read and do camp will have you follow the checklist and wait until after engine start. So now the passengers and their baggage is loaded, the engines are going and finally we choose to start checking. What a waste of the two hours we had available.So while I am checking the hydraulics, I also check the flight controls and spoilers. When we reach the point in the checklist that says ““Flight controls and spoilers,” I say ““checked.”…but they were checked earlier, not when he reads it.For a do and check guy, this is fine, practical, there is a reason behind it. For the read and do guy, this is treason, unacceptable and etc.So committing to memory, yes, but that doesn’t mean you abandon the checklist. It means you carry out the flow, then check! That is why it is called a check list. It has been turned in to a recipe list among some colleagues and there is a lot of discussion regarding what is safest, what is most appropriate. Airbus and Boeing have different philosophies in this regard, so often the camp you find yourself in, will be reflected there.In the past 3 months, I have flown a 208, a B58, C604, XLS and having a flow, thinking about what I am doing and then checking, really helps me make the changes from type to type. My mind is active and searching, engaged and thinking. Then I go to the checklist ““what have I forgotten?”On my last job, I sat with the other senior captain and we did our flow and wrote it down, revised it, tested it and created a new check list that reflected what we really did. We did this because we would be getting pilots new to type coming in and we wanted to assist them in becoming used to the flow, by including it as the checklist, rather than the manufacturers checklist. It also got the read and do people who might come in, onto the mentality of what is happening, when.Oh, reminds me……the IRS come at the end of the checklist. But they take a long time to spool up. So those are selected ““ON,” after the APU generator is on line. Another practical item as there are several things that need the IRSs up and running in order to complete the checks. The read and do guys end up sitting there, waiting……..because they reach a point where they cannot proceed.Of course, the fuel guy will show up, the baggage arrives early, the passengers are 45 minutes early and they get all out of sorts, because their recipe book is upset. Sorry, I am being more than a little hard on that camp, but it is just my experience of the two approaches.The end…..