Scudrunners

^ Sure, but your basic configuration is not changing.  I'll bet, when you head back to the airport, that you use a checklist of some sort to correctly configure for a tarmac landing?  Then again, maybe you don't, cos yo've got dozens of hours on the thing, and the paper checklist that you were taight was long ago committed to memory.  I'm sure that the Colonel is the same way, too.
A guy with 50 hours, 'd like to see him using a list - not the Encyclopeda, but something that has all of the high points on it.

I think that you guys (professional pilots all) have forgotten what it was like to have 50, 100, 200 hours, and fly once every few months...

I teach my students to  " Always " do the killer item check before landing....

So when they return to the airport they will be configured for the landing surface.

How many killer items does the machine you fly have mm...bacon ?

If you can not remember the killer items on any aircraft don't fly it.

[quote author=mmm...bacon link=topic=131.msg349#msg349 date=1432928166]
the paper checklist that you were taight was long ago committed to memory….. but something that has all of the high points on it.[/quote]Which is essentially what a flow pattern is.

Why should it be that people can memorize multiplication tables, phone numbers, people's birthdays etc., but can't seem to wrap your head around learning 6-10 items in conjunction with a physical flow that includes muscle memory into the mix?

The less you fly, the more you can practice the flow sitting in a chair with your eyes closed and moving your hands until you have it nailed. You make your flow pattern by having a set number of items and you count through them with a pre-determined physical ending point. If you get to that physical point and you are at the wrong number, you have missed something.

[quote author=Chuck Ellsworth link=topic=131.msg350#msg350 date=1432930494]
I teach my students to  " Always " do the killer item check before landing....

So when they return to the airport they will be configured for the landing surface.

How many killer items does the machine you fly have mm...bacon ?

If you can not remember the killer items on any aircraft don't fly it.
[/quote]

Killer items?  I guess it depends on how you define 'killer items'...gear up on the runway woould b e a major fukup, and perhaps fatal for my job; gear down on the water has the greater potential for kiling me..flaps, she'd land a little fast, boost pumps are always on...
So, one or two, depending on where I'm operating from...and yes, I compulsively check the gear about 4 times on final.  (Mainly because I don't want to be laughed at on line!)

[quote]
Killer items?  I guess it depends on how you define 'killer items'.[/quote]

I used the term " Killer items " to describe the few things that have to possibility of killing you if you don't make sure they are correct.

As you pointed out landing an amphib. gear down on the water can definitely kill you.

For me there are several others.

Taking off with the control locks on.

( It can happen real easy, one day I had gone to town to eat between water bombing missions and told the engineer how much gas to put in it. When I got back forestry were all excited about us getting airborne and I was doing my best until I was just short of the runway and got to " controls free " the ailerons were locked solid...I looked out and there on the ends of the wings were the aileron locks that the engineer had put on and we alll missed them on our quick departure...it was quite embarrassing having to shut down the two engines and get up on the wings and remove them.

Taking off with the wrong fuel selection, losing the engine just after take off in the wrong place can kill you.

Taking off with full up elevator trim set in some airplanes can also kill you.

Anyhow those are a couple of killer items that I was describing.

Couple guys with my company saved the day just a few years ago in a hawker 800 just by being diligent with their control checks. They where taking position and the captain pulled forward and back and then tired left to right and the ailerons where jammed.

It turns out that when they had swept the snow off the wings a small screw that attached the broom "spreader bars" to the shaft had come loose and fell onto the wing and worked itself down into the aileron gap. They had performed a control check on the walk around and after start, it work its way in place while on the taxi out. Fate is the hunter

Needless to say 25 emails went around the head shed and came up with the solution to tape over the screws on all the brooms, then someone suggested just making it SOP to perform a control check as you take position. Meanwhile every pilot I knew just went about being professionals. 

[quote author=ScudRunner link=topic=131.msg365#msg365 date=1433042095]
fell onto the wing and worked itself down into the aileron gap[/quote]
I had the exact same thing one time but it was a Red Devil fishing spoon. Some tool had obviously been fishing off the dock and got it caught in the wing of my Beaver and just broken it off and not told anyone. When I checked the controls while taxiing out, they wouldn't roll.

[quote author=Colonel link=topic=131.msg344#msg344 date=1432888554]
Food for thought:  here is a WWII checklist for
a very complicated four-engine bomber:

[img][/img][/quote]
The story goes that item three of the Before Starting checks was where checklists were born, and on the (second) prototype B-17 no less!

[img]http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/aircraft/B ... Crash2.jpg[/img]
(Pictured above is the [i]first[/i] prototype B-17, said to be the last complicated airplane to not come with some sort of factory recommended operating procedure)

The decision to use a checklist or a flow check should be based on context.  Flows are appropriate during critical times of high work load; i.e. final check, engine failure on climb out and other such situations.  Checklists are best when the pilot is doing something out of the ordinary and there is time for to go heads down in the cockpit;  i.e. securing an engine once the AC is at a safe altitude.
Flow checks also work well for single pilot operations with simple airplanes where the pilots fly very frequently. 

[quote]simple airplanes[/quote]

Dumb question:  what's a "simple airplane"?

Does that include constant speed prop? 
Retractable gear?  Multi-engine?  Turbo-
charged?  Pressurized?  Geared engine?
De-iced?  Turbo-jet?  Turbo-fan?  Turbo-
prop?

I'm not trying to be difficult - I'm truly
interested.

To me, the L39 russian turbo-fan jet is
"simple" compared to say the C421
(geared, turbocharged, pressurized,
de-iced) and I don't use checklists in
either, for normal ops.

Grip it and rip it.  If the engines get gas
and the gear goes up and down, I'm a
happy camper.

For most pilots that I see, not enough
checklist doesn't even crack the top 100
problems they have in the cockpit.

Every time I hear about a gear-up landing
of a retractable, the pilot had a checklist.