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PHOTO COURTESY OF MACH POINT ONE AVIATION PHOTOGRAPHY
The Checklist
How and when the checklist should be used, and why single-pilot IFR demands a different approach.
by Joe Casey
My aviation career began like many; learning to fly in a humble Cessna 172 with a nearly-starving CFI at a non-controlled, rural one-runway airport. For me, the airport was Just Plane Fun Airpark in Nacogdoches, Texas; a short grass strip hewn from
an East Texas pine forest. Literally stumbling onto the airport (actually looking for a job, not a pilot license), I was offered a ride in the back of a 1956 Cessna 172 to observe a training flight.
Within a minute after takeoff, I was enthralled by the shift in perspective that happens when you leave the ground, but I also loved the manner in which the student went about the work of flying. It was not haphazard or random; there was a definite order, a “way it should be done,” and I liked it. I was in desperate need of a disciplined approach to life in my youth, and the systematic way that the pilot organized the flight just looked right.
During my private pilot training, the checklist was used during the start and run-up, but once the airplane left the ground the checklist disappeared. Using a checklist for every touch-and-go just didn’t seem to happen, so the checklist was relegated to the space under the seat, only to be found after being back on the ground for shutdown.
As my aviation training expanded, checklist use did not. During my instrument rating training, the CFII half-heartedly expected me to use the checklist, and I used it a lot more during commer- cial pilot training. It seemed like I’d get more “checklist discipline” when approaching the date for a practical test so I’d look more professional with the examiner. But after the practical test was over, checklist use drifted back to the ground checks before flight, and relegated to the sidewall pocket for the flight portions.
6 • TWIN & TURBINE
September 2018