Checklists run amok
Throw out the kitchen sink
By Dave Hirschman
It was my first solo flight in an amphibious Cessna 208 Caravan, and I pulled out the telephone-book-size pilot’s operating handbook and its associated checklists to avoid errors.
This flight was going to be a short one—just 20 or so air miles from Minneapolis, Minnesota, to its twin city of St. Paul where the Caravan would have its floats replaced with wheels for the winter. The Caravan’s owner gave me the keys and then hopped in his Jeep. He’d drive to St. Paul and pick me up there.
I climbed the jungle gym to the Caravan cockpit and dutifully went through the checklists, line by line—including the many all-caps placards—eventually getting the engine started, a flight plan loaded in the GPS, and taxied to the hold-short line.
The flight itself was uneventful except for my cellphone constantly vibrating with texts from the owner asking my whereabouts. It turns out he had driven to St. Paul in less time than it took me to crank up the PT6A engine, sort through the checklists, and take off.
Many of those checklist items were repetitive. There seemed little rhyme or reason to their order. And irrelevant items (extinguish all smoking materials, turn on the fasten seat belt light) and obvious ones (turn on radios, check weather) were given the same weight as really important ones (fuel, flaps, and trim).
After landing in St. Paul, I told the owner I was embarrassed by my tardiness, and he smiled and laughed.
“I get it. You were using the lawyer checklist,” he said. “That thing takes forever. Did you happen to notice the Quick Reference [QR] checklist I left on the right seat for you?”
Yeah, I’d had seen it, and ignored it, in an effort to be more thorough and presumably safer. But I wouldn’t make that mistake again.
If brevity is the soul of wit, the QR checklist is pure brilliance. It distills the start sequence into just seven items to check and four actions to do. The QR preflight checklist is equally succinct with just seven items (flaps, lights, ignition, fuel, high idle, transponder, and trim).
Sure, no one knows the Caravan better than its manufacturer. But manufacturers who create “kitchen sink” checklists aren’t doing pilots any favors. Skip the legalistic warnings of imminent death and focus on the critical stuff. Putting the wheels down before landing on a runway is critical. Reminding pilots who don’t smoke to put out their cigarettes isn’t.
Manufacturer checklists are so awful that a cottage industry has been created to replace them. Companies like CheckMate Aviation and Qref have built entire businesses by making sturdy, colorful, laminated checklists that are thoughtfully designed, accurate, and brief.
Ideally, checklists should be tailored to follow flows. Engine start, pre-taxi, pre-takeoff, climb, cruise, descent, and pre-landing items are performed in logical sweeps. Pilots can read the checklist to familiarize themselves with the process, perform the actions, then go back to the checklist to ensure nothing was left out.
Checklists are vital but imperfect tools. Pilots should feel free to customize them if doing so makes them more helpful for the aircraft they fly and the way they fly. A cumbersome checklist that gets ignored serves no purpose at all. 
Builder knows best
Trust the manufacturer’s checklist
By Ian Wilder
You can imagine how confused I was when I jumped in the first new-to-me aircraft after my private pilot checkride to find a checklist in the form of a laminate in the seatback, which looked far shorter than what I had grown accustomed to in training.
I had optimized my checklist from the 1977 Cessna 152 pilot’s operating handbook (POH) onto a laminate, but it read line-by-line identical—apart from additions for some of the new technology in the aircraft since the 1970s—to the POH.
I spoke to some of the local pilots at the FBO I rented the new aircraft from who said they liked their version of the checklist because they’ve introduced some “efficiencies.”
Although it may seem like a good way to introduce some simplicity into the cockpit, it’s too big of a risk to take when the manufacturer’s checklist has been expertly crafted and reviewed to meet the specifications of that aircraft.
You would be hard pressed to find a pilot who hasn’t caught something they’ve forgotten with a checklist. Everyone’s heard stories of forgotten fuel tank caps, flaps set in the wrong position, or landing gear not having been extended—all mistakes that could’ve been prevented with the proper use of a checklist.
The mindset that something is “too obvious” or “too redundant” to put on said checklist is a dangerous one. Even if you are almost certain there is no purpose in following a manufacturer’s recommendation, apart from being on the team that built that aircraft, what qualifies you to make that call?
If the manufacturer wrote it as a checklist item in the POH, trust the manufacturer. You’re already putting a ton of faith in the manufacturer’s design, but when it comes to its checklists, you’d rather use your own? There’s no amount of time you can spend in that aircraft that will replace the collective thought the manufacturer put in to designing the checklists.
I remember sitting down at the dining room table as a student pilot and staring down at every page of the POH’s checklist until I could still see it with my eyes closed. When it came to running it in the aircraft, everything was snappy. A well-familiarized checklist is an elegant duet between pilot and panel. But in this dance, the imperative falls on the pilot to know the checklist well.
The FAA doesn’t require you to use the manufacturers’ checklists, admittedly. FAR 91.9, only requires you to follow “operating limitations” (among other things) from the manual. But as is the case with so many things in aviation, legal does not mean safe, let alone recommended.
It’s a dangerous game to play. At some point a line must be drawn in the sand at what to keep when adapting a checklist. What happens if you draw that line an inch too far? It’s probably not fun and not a lesson I’d be interested in learning the hard way.
Aviation loves redundancy. Dual ignition systems, alternate static sources, two magnetos, and far beyond that. You wouldn’t remove a magneto because your engine can technically run with just one—don’t remove items from a checklist just because you can. 
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