by Zach Grant L1011jock » Wed Oct 10, 2012 1:38 am
David,
If you don't mind my comments here, but this is a checklist, not a how to manual. When was the last time you read a checklist while you were taking off. You could probably do away with a significant portion of this, enableing you to make it even more compact if you kept the minimum: Preflight, Before Start, Before Taxi, Before Takeoff, After Takeoff/Climb, Descent/Approach, Before Landing, After Landing, Parking, are pretty good titles to stick with for a real checklist (not a how to list). Put the how to stuff on a separate supplementary procedures page if you want to keep it handy. Shorter is better! Kill me items are my preference. Lets face it, if you forget to turn on the master or the mags, you arent going to die (you won't be going anywhere either, but... Embearassing, maybe, but not deadly!
Really, FD BLT CI (Fire Dept. makes good B.L.T.'s and Controls Ice- F(uel)D(oor)B(oost pump)L(ights)T(ransponder) Controls free, Ice protection(pitot heat and heater)) makes a good before takeoff check. Up (gear and flaps) and Off (pumps and landing lights) for the climb check. GUMP still is the best before landing. Flaps up, flight electrics switches off for the after landing check, and R M3 (radios, mixture, mags, master) for parking.
Certainly do what you want, but by keeping the checklist as a checklist and not a crutch for not thinking about/knowing what you are doing in the airplane, you will not make as many stupid mistakes, and you will actually catch the mistakes you do make (thus it is doing its job of CHECKING your proceedures). If you are too reliant on a list to substitute for your brain, you will miss something and have no clue it was missed, because the list is now a directions sheet,not a check list. Like following a recipe, miss a step in the directions, and you may get all the way to the end before you realize you missed something important, and then it might be too late.
-Zach
"Keep it above 5 feet and don't do nuthin dumb!"