Best and worst experiences with flight instructors

[jarhead]

And it was someone in your community that had to write an Approach article, after doing a high speed abort because he didn't unfold his wings. I'm guessing that's in a checklist, somewhere?

Ask HAL - he's probably started/taxied/taken off more times than all of us combined. Yet, I'm guessing he still uses a checklist.

Bud, there's buffoonery across all platforms, whether single piloted or multi-crew, jets or choppers, in which checklists were ignored and mishaps occured.

I get what you're saying, and whether or not it's right or wrong, it's just the way it is in the pointy nose world...most checklists are memorized. It's the way I was taught, and the way I taught my Cones when I was an IP.

S/F

 

[HAL Pilot]

Riddle me this batman - if memorizing the checklist was the mark of a mishap-free pilot, why do airline guys read the checklist and have a lower mishap rate than us? Maybe it's because you're destined to have to write an approach article at best.

We do "flows" then run the checklist to verify we got everything in the right place during the flow. Some checklist are challenge-response, some are done soley by the non-flying pilot, and some are a combination of both. The only time we actually touch anything during the checklist is if we fucked up our flow but we always run the checklist.

 

[MAKE VAPES]

How does one refer (reading side by side seat style) to a landing checklist after breaking at the numbers (downwind or upwind for that matter) at 400 knots? Would I key the mike and challenge/reply myself??? Do I take my eyes off instruments at 450 AGL at the 90 to READ my checklist? Or do I KNOW it, and DO it... lip service gets paid in every platform, mistakes will be made, reading like a robotic monkey or not.

Whop whop, four fans of freedom.... and single sticked jets are entirelly different worlds.

 

[pourts]

No salt here (still in hornet rag) but part of the reason we don't really run checklists but use mnemonics or "flows" instead is because of the size and layout of the cockpit. I am guessing the phrog doesn't have MFD's. A large portion of our checklists involves the MFDs. I can go to my menu on the MFD, flow clockwise around the edge looking at the different sub menus, and make sure I covered everything.

Also, do you guys use a plane captain for start-up? Most times our PC has to have someone service the hyds in the back after the engines are on (meatloaf! I never know what she's doing back there). It can be quick or take forever. Or, maybe I have to run the FCS I-BIT 5 times. That down time means there's certain things I want to hold until later and not do them when the NATOPS checklist says to do so. Some items on the NATOPS checklist can be done in a different order, safely, and save time. Call it the "long pole in the..." you know what I mean.

 

[KBayDog]

How does the Fire Scout do its checklists?

 

[81montedriver]

In the J model we do flows as well. Each segment , before start, engine start, before taxi etc... has a memorized flow and a corresponding checklist. With a couple of experienced guys up front, the entire process is fast minus engine start, which you can't really speed up with 4 engines.

 

[Pugs]

Heads would explode if you attempted to do all of the checklists challenge-response style.

In my experience (2500 hours in Prowlers) I never saw a before takeoff checklist that could not be read challenge and response and be done somewhere between the chocks and hold short or between breakdown and going to the cat.

Landing checks were done by verbally the pilot (3 down and locked, flaps 30/stab shifted/boards out, hook up/down, tank pressurization norm, wing PSI lights on and speed check is cemented in my mind 5 years after my final flight) and backed up by ECMO one and the slat position by the guys in back. When doing CQ and coming out of the wires the pilot did the abbreviated takeoff checks on the way to the cat with Wings / IPI and trim and ECMO one backing him up with ECMO one checking and OK'ing the weight board backed up by the pilot (showing me 55K, rogering 55K).

Have I skipped checklists? Sure, I also took an inadvertent trap at Miramar coming off a bingo off the Kitty. Which is more a pain in the ass?

One of my RAG instructors and one of my classmates were killed at North Island in 89 because they tried to take off with the flaps up. Everyone who went to Safety School at Monterey looked at those jet pieces and went over the MIR. They taxied and started the checks, got interrupted and had to fold the wings to get past another a/c and picked up the checks without ever dirtying up again. Both ejected into the runway after they finished the first cartwheel down the runway. Prowler SOP then became "if interrupted start over" and I found that served us well.

There's a lot more in that MIR relevent to this thread on instructors and mindsets and communication that's for you to read in the MIR and I'm sure that stuff is available to you guys on AD still or through your safety dude and it is well worth a read.

 

[Uncle Fester]

That Prowler mishap at NASNI you're referring to the one with one survivor? Drogue chute deployed before he bounced off Seal Beach? If so, I remember him speaking about it at a SSD in P'cola when I was a SNFO. One thing that really stuck with me was him saying he had that something-ain't-right brain tickle as they took the runway. Realized later (as in, in the hospital later) it was that he didn't remember seeing the slats come out in the corner of his eye like he was used to.

Never been in a mishap, but a couple of interesting moments, and they all started off with an awkward silence before someone in the crew said, "That sound right to you?", or "Wait, did we forget something?" My point is, the value of checklists as I see it isn't so much making sure you got everything, as it is reinforcing and standardizing habit patterns.

 

[FrankTheTank]

In the Airline World- They are just that 'Checklists' not a "do" list but a "check" list. You do your flow and then check it. That is how we did it when I was in the Navy. Same way without the term "Flow"

When I was an SNA we were told you don't memorize the checklist but you know the pre flight, before landing, after landing, shutdown, etc. procedures by memory and verify with the checklist. Almost 17 years since my Fam 1 and it still works.

Note: Meridian was where this really took shape not T-34s. I think it is more of a jet philosophy but I can't really support this claim since that was my pipeline.

 

[Random Task]

Another technique people use is knowing how many items are on the checklist and if say you didn't touch/check, 10 items on a 10 item checklist, you know it's time to refer back to checklist.

Just throwing it out there, with fuel being so tight in our community, the time wasted on deck is fuel you don't have to do an extra BFM set or extra run at the tgt.

 

[C420sailor]

In my experience (2500 hours in Prowlers) I never saw a before takeoff checklist that could not be read challenge and response and be done somewhere between the chocks and hold short or between breakdown and going to the cat.

In T-45 land we were trained to have a single seat mentality. The only part of the checklist that you bounced off the IP was the arming of the seats.

 

[phrogpilot73]

Wow, I did get butt-hurt when I drunk posted. I apologize.

My point is still the same. Multi-crew shouldn't be memorizing the checklists, and honestly I'd argue that single seat shouldn't either. Some are understandable (we memorize our landing checks, but in case we forget - it's engraved on a placard on both sides of the cockpit) to memorize - but a start/taxi/takeoff checklist should be at a minimum executed and then reviewed. Again, when it's not - that's when the darts start coming out at the AMB and JAGMAN.

 

[KBayDog]

Wow, I did get butt-hurt...

Comes with your pay grade.

 

[Pugs]

That Prowler mishap at NASNI you're referring to the one with one survivor? Drogue chute deployed before he bounced off Seal Beach? If so, I remember him speaking about it at a SSD in P'cola when I was a SNFO. One thing that really stuck with me was him saying he had that something-ain't-right brain tickle as they took the runway. Realized later (as in, in the hospital later) it was that he didn't remember seeing the slats come out in the corner of his eye like he was used to.

Yep - and he was the Safety Officer of the RAG at the time. If it wasn't for the sheer damn bulletproofness of the Martin Baker GRU-12 and he being command ejected he wouldn't be alive. Went on to be a VAQ CO and was then promoted to Capt and it had nothing to do with competence.

 

[Jim123]

Comes with your pay grade.

Doncha know that with reservists you either gotta subtract one or divide in half and add one?