Welcome back SPC listeners and Merry Christmas. This one's coming to you on Christmas day. So enjoy. You ever wonder what that list everyone talks about around Christmas time is? Well, stay with me to find out in episode 82 of the student pilot cast, making a list and checking it twice or never. So this is a fun one and a topic that I'm a little passionate about. Today's episode is another beyond the check ride with Kent Shook. And we'll be talking about, you guessed it, checklists. Everyone was taught how important checklists can be, of course. But what happens in the real world beyond the checkride? I really do believe that good checklists and good checklist habits for a pilot can be literal lifesavers. But what makes a good checklist? And how can bad checklists be more dangerous than no checklist at all? Well, one way is to teach a pilot bad checklist habits, but we'll get into some of that here. So without further ado, here's the latest beyond the check ride segment with Kent.

All right. Welcome back everybody to another beyond the check ride. I'm here again with Kent Shook. Are we doing all right, Kent?

We're doing great.

Awesome.

I can talk about flying is a great day.

Always is. All right. So we're coming back at you with another beyond the check ride. What have you got for us today?

We are going to talk about checklists.

Oh, I love this topic.

it's an interesting topic because there are opinions all over the board on this one. you know, some people say, well, I don't need a checklist. Some people say you must use a checklist. Absolutely. Every time some people have mnemonics that they like to use in certain situations instead. And, you know, I, I've got to say I've probably been all of the above at one point or another, but, the first time I really started thinking, A little more about checklists and the, the thing that got me off of being a checklist hater was about 14 years ago after I had gotten my commercial multi, which, know, I wasn't planning on ever having a job in aviation at that point, but I figured, you know, You know, if the right thing comes along, I don't want to have to turn it down because I don't have the right ratings for it. So

Plus, more training's never a bad thing.

absolutely, I love to fly and, you know, getting more ratings lets you fly more stuff. So, um, anyway, it only took, I guess it was about a year and a half after I got my commercial multi before I had my first right place, right time situation. And I got to fly right seat in a Hawker, um, get a little jet time in the log book. and that was really cool. It was a great experience. you know, I had to spend a bunch of time with the PIC on the ground beforehand learning about what I was going to need to do and all that. And then, you know, Uh, the flight itself was only about an hour. but one of the things that really made an impression on me was the checklists in that airplane, because I was used to just. your standard piston GA checklists. And now, uh, the lens of hindsight, I can see just how bad GA checklists are. I mean, they're awful,

Yeah,

really, awful.

yep.

says we want everybody to use checklists and To be honest, of all the people that I have flown with in, you know, the outside of the professional world, let's say, all the people who are recreational GA flyers, I think maybe only two or three were actually like legitimate religious checklist users. And I think this is why is our checklists are terrible.

Yeah, it still kind of shocks me, but it's probably because I'm spending so much time in a training environment lately. You know, at flight schools and things like that. Um, but yeah, that's, that's a little shocking. They, they are really bad. The things, the things I can't stand about most GA checklists, especially if they follow the, you know, the old POHs, even the new ones, sometimes there's a lot of things in there that are completely useless. And then some things that, and so it just clutters it up. It makes it more difficult to remember to do them because you're not finding value in them. You know,

Bingo.

you're, kind of going through it and you're like, this is just such a waste and then there may be some things and you'll probably talk about this later, but then there's some things that you personally know you really need on the checklist because maybe it's something that you're having trouble remembering with your flows, you know, and you want to make sure you go back and check those, but it's not going to be in a standard GA checklist. You know, so, yeah, I know what you mean. I mean, some of these checklists, they're just cluttered. They're full of junk. They've got things. I religiously use them, which means that I use a checklist maybe 60 percent of the time, and I call that religious usage. And it's not that I'm trying not to. I'm talking about, I try to use one every phase of flight, but I skip a lot of times. And so I feel like I'm doing pretty well if I use it 60 time or 60 percent of the time for each phase of flight. I'm always doing my flows, but every once in a while, I'll. Get on the ground and if I'm in a low wing and I'll realize. Ooh, I never turned on the, the electric fuel pump, you know, I accidentally skipped it, so I know I need them. And so I try to use them all the time, which means I use them about 60 percent of the time.

So think of an instance recently in which you did not use a checklist and think about, okay, why didn't you use the checklist?

Um, well, I want to say, in an instance, I'm thinking of right now, a few weeks ago, when I, realized that I hadn't done, you know, I hadn't gone through the checklist. This wasn't the time where I had forgotten to do anything, but I realized, oh, man, I didn't do it. And the reason I realized I didn't use it was because, you know, I had somebody there. It was my son, I had my son with me and I was going, Oh, man, I should be really making sure I use this checklist, as setting an example, basically, and I, I want to say the reason I didn't use it is because I just forgot I was busy with something that I was doing. But if I'm honest. maybe it was cause I didn't feel like I needed it at that point.

Yep. I can totally see that. And you know, you just made me think of a, one of the just most fun flights I ever had, not because it was, uh, you know, something mind boggling, but just because it was simple. I was up at a grass strip in the upper peninsula of Michigan, up North. was there with a bunch of friends for Labor Day weekend. if they're listening, they know who you are. Hi guys. great little fly in and you know, we basically, we'll go up there and, We'll hop on ATVs and drive around in the woods on old fire trails and stuff like that. And it's just a great time. But this particular day, you know, it was toward the end of the day, we had already, you know, grilled out for lunch and been doing all kinds of random up North stuff. we were coming out of the woods on the ATVs approaching the airport. And we stopped at an intersection that was about two blocks away from the airport. I mean, that's pretty much across town in that place, but we all kind of looked at the sun, which was getting low in the Western sky. And it was like probably a half hour till sunset. And someone said, what should we do now? And kind of look at the sun and I go, Let's go fly. So we all just go over to the airport and we had just been flying before and there's nobody around. And there's, I mean, at the time there wasn't any cell phone signal. So like you couldn't call flight service for a briefing. There's no internet. You know, this is probably even before for flight existed anyway. but. Like I said, we had already been flying, so no pre flights to do, no flight service to call. It was literally just hop in the plane and go. so it was just this, you know, calming thing to just jump in the plane and go. and it was just a wonderful flight because they're Wasn't that much to it. It was just super simple. And you know, when you go down these checklists, they're just not, they make it as complicated as they can. I feel like written by lawyers and all that, you know,

Right. Right.

I don't know if they're to make it look cool or if they think that if they don't make you check every little thing five times that they're going to be open to liability of some sort or, you know, a lot of them are step by step instructions on how to fly and don't need that, know,

Yes.

coming in as a brand new student, maybe you need every item on that 172 checklist, but I would say even um, handful of flights in, you know, one of my examples that I love to, brag on Cessna about is if you look in a Cessna 172 pre flight checklist, it says, master, on, fuel gauges, check, master, off. Like how about just put fuel gauges, check. And if they say empty and you looked in the wing and it was full of fuel, maybe go, Oh yeah, those are electric gauges. I need to turn the master on for a second. So as a result of things like that, Um,

And

the Hawker, I

I don't, I don't mean to interrupt Kent, but I got to ask, and how many times do I need to check that the trim is set for takeoff?

18, but no, after flying the Hawker, went back and I looked at, uh, you know, the checklists are all a little different. I feel like there were more checklists before takeoff in the Hawker, but they were all just like half a dozen killer items and that's it. And so I went back and looked and, If you count up all the checklist items that you have before the wheels leave the ground, there's more of them for a Cessna 172 than there are for a Hawker 800 jet.

That's crazy.

Yeah, it's, it's utterly stupid. FAA, if you're listening, that's why people don't use checklists when you're not looking.

Yeah.

Um, and of course that's a detriment to safety. you know,

Hey, I'm, I'm going to ask you a question.

on those checklists. And

I'm going to ask you a question, Kent, um, just to make sure you clarify when you say killer items, I don't think you mean, Oh, these are really cool items. So do you want to explain that a little bit

I mean things that will literally kill you and,

right on?

know, things that might damage the airplane. Um, you know, going back through the POH on my airplane, Which, eh, it's a good thing to do now and then. I've had this airplane for 12 years and, there's a lot of stuff in there that made me go, huh, okay. You know, one of the things that they put in there that I maybe should check better than I do is, to make sure that the gear switch is down before the master goes on. Because my gear is electric.

Oh, yeah,

gear switch is up, I don't know if the motor is strong enough to pull the wheels in,

but it's not going to be good for it. Yeah,

no, it's definitely not going to be good for it. so yeah, I'm, I'm either going to burn out a motor and pop a breaker or I'm going to drop the airplane on the ground. now I've probably gotten complacent about that because there are Two people who fly my airplane. And so, we're also both very similar in how we approach flying and such. And I, I able to trust that, my co owner in the airplane is not going to leave the gear switch up, but. let's say, you know, there was just an event at an airport near here last week. hello to everyone in the only one a key in the world. they have a great breakfast and like airport community day there. And so they have all kinds of kids who are wanting to sit in airplanes and stuff. And, you know, we used to always take the club airplanes over there and let the kids crawl around and all that. Well, okay. After something like that, Well, yeah, you'd best be sure all the switches are where you want them to be before you do anything. anyway, so now that we have, almost 15 minutes talking about how bad checklists are, let's kind of move on to how can we make them better. and I do want to talk about a couple of things that make them easier to use. Eventually, once you get past the setup phase, our friends of ForeFlight have checklists in their product. you can have ForeFlight read you your checklists, which it just does at pace you set. but I got to admit that what inspired me to dive back into checklists here is a new product, relatively new product anyway, called goose, which is billed as your AI co pilot. they were at Oshkosh this year. They sponsored an entire exhibit hanger and I got to admit that's the first time I've ever seen an exhibit hanger sponsored by a company I've never heard of before.

yeah, right. Yeah.

Um,

Very interesting product. Yeah.

So they had their, you know, they got the booth right inside the door for sponsoring the hanger. And you know, I went over there and checked it out and it's pretty darn cool. you can set your checklists up in there among other things that actually does more than just checklists. But, you can set it up so that, it will wait for you. this is kind of the default, I think where it will read you a checklist item and then you say either check or skip, or you can even say go back and it'll go back to the previous one and that sort of thing. But, you know, just by doing actual voice response, I feel like it has a kind of a new dimension. over some of the other app based checklist products. And, it

My understanding is. it can, alert you that it's time to run a checklist at certain phases of flights as, as time goes on. During certain phases of flight as well, which is pretty interesting for not forgetting or moving over a checklist.

yeah. that part I haven't gotten into yet. I know that it can set timers, for example. So maybe at the end of your, before takeoff checklist, will start a timer for a minute or two and then say, Hey, do you want to do your after takeoff checklist now? And that sort of thing. I don't know if it lets you do stuff based on climb and descent and all that sort of thing, but,

It, it does it, it can, I don't know if it has that feature yet. I haven't dived in enough, but it does do it based on distance from your destination.

uh, cool.

So as you're approaching your airport, maybe you have it set to remind you to do your pre 10 miles out, for example.

Yeah. Yeah, that's reason that maybe some other people want to get back into checklists as well and think about, how their checklists are built. I think that checklists are something that are at least somewhat unique to an individual, um,

I agree.

you know. They are written for airplanes, but there are probably some things that, you know, maybe you're more prone to forgetting than I am or vice versa. And so, you know, the first thing, the first time I forget something, well, it needs to go on a checklist. Right. Um, so how do we build checklists? Um, I'm going to say that. I, uh, you know, we mentioned the difference between, um, 172. I'm going to give you a before and after so far for my checklist project on the Mooney. up to the point where the wheels leave the ground, The POH has 173 checklist items, kind of a lot, right?

Yeah. Yeah. That's a lot.

after it down to 74 and that does, both of those do include the entire preflight inspection. So, but for example, factory checklist has 74 items on the preflight. Mine has 34, you know, their before start checklist has 26 items. Mine has eight. I actually will be adding more to this after I finished going through everything on the factory checklist and thinking through it. But given those

You'll be adding those personal items. The things that you are, you know, that you need

Yeah. And really, the main thing there is one of the categories I actually wanted to talk about, which is procedural items. So all these checklists that were written by lawyers, as we like to say, they have everything you need to know about the airplane and they don't cover everything. anything else. So for example, well, like the Mooney does talk about the radios being set. That's kind of an old checklist, right? Really we ought to be talking about the flight plan being entered into the GPS these days, as well as the radios being set. but you know, when you're making an IFR flight, there are additional procedural things that you need to make sure that you do that, you know, they're not going to kill you on a VFR flight. But they might kill you on an IFR flight. might be able to get away with it without a takeoff briefing on a VFR flight, but if you blast off into the clouds and go, what was my obstacle departure procedure again? Yeah, you might be in the side of a mountain before you are able to go back and fix that. So, that sort of thing

really good point.

on GA checklists. And as a result, I, I'm sitting here talking about they're not, or they're being too much. On the checklists. Most of the time, that's true of the normal checklists. I found the opposite is true of the emergency checklists. Some airplanes, when you look at the emergency checklist engine failure in a single, for example, they start talking about setting the mixture to rich and switching fuel tanks and, you know, and do a different mag or whatever. And the first thing ought to be, Air speed.

Pitch pitch for best glide. Yes.

Yes.

And that's

thing should be find where you're going to land and turn that way.

exactly totally agree. And,

looking at the airplane.

and, and by the way, I want to add, Especially for new pilots, if you haven't thought about this, pitch for best glide is almost always going to be a pull unless you happen to be on takeoff.

Yeah. Yeah. Unless you're climbing.

And you might as well, if you're in cruise and you're starting to lose your engine, you might as well take that altitude when you can get it. So,

And of course, trim for it right away, or you're not going to be keeping it for very long.

yep,

one hint I've heard is that most airplanes it's pretty close to all the way nose up trim

yep. Most air, most GA or, you know, piston airplanes. Yeah, it'll be almost all the way back.

so yeah, there are definitely some, some opportunities to flush some things out. and especially on emergency checklists, you know, you're already going to have a startle or flight kind of response going on. And so you, Absolutely do not want to skip something important, and that's why you really do need to kind of add things to the emergency checklist, even if they might seem fairly obvious, you know, you don't want to make the checklist ridiculously long, but you do want to be sure that those things that were just talked about, you know, that aren't necessarily related to airplane systems are taken care of generally those are the most important. so let's see, I guess, my overall method for doing this is to start with the factory checklist. Don't just start from scratch.

Yeah, there could be some things on there that are, that are killer items and you want to make sure that those make it on.

checklists are written how they are for I think that there are some better reasons sometimes to change how they work. one thing that I have done quite a bit of to get my item count down is just to combine things are right next to each other, for example. you know, at one point, I think my checklist says to turn the master on and then it says to turn the alternator field on and then it says avionics master. And you know, it's doing things that are right next to each other. so what I'm going to do is I'm going to say, Masters on that makes sure that I covered all three of them, but it makes it so that I only have one checklist item

right

right next to each other. So it's not like I have to look around for anything, to know that that item is complete.

Yeah.

You know, same thing. I have three items for seats, seat belts, and shoulder harnesses. Well, I go back to the checklist that we used in the TBM. Seats, adjusted and belted. You covered all three of those things in a single item. Um, another one that,

Going, Going, back to how bad these checklists can be. that's one of my pet peeves when there's a bunch of things that the seats, seat belts, shoulder harnesses, I cannot stand that on a checklist, especially when they're, when they're all, you know, separate items. These are why we skip things. Because there's too many, and you're, you're looking down, you're glancing, and you're going, yeah, yeah, yeah, I, I know these all three are together, you're moving down, and then you may skip one, that's actually a killer item, that's after those, because there's just too many, and I know we're harping on that, but I love, I love where you're going with this, because if we made these checklists more useful, yeah, We would use them more and use them more effectively. So I love this. Yeah. Perfect example.

And some people might think, Oh, well, you know, going and making your own checklists isn't safe. Well, I disagree. A, it

I do too.

everything. B, it makes it more likely that you're actually going to use your checklists. And, you

and does everybody

checklists, I mean, those 172 checklists are tiny print. Because there's a billion different things on him. Well, you know, when I first started making my own checklists, I did it with some help from my CF double I and I was able to, you know, format everything myself. I got the whole thing basically onto two sides of a single sheet of eight and a half by 11 paper. and things were printed probably double the size that they are in a 172 POH. So it makes

for my,

that you'll miss individual items as

yeah, for the planes I fly, I try to get them on both sides of a half sheet and then I laminate them when I'm using paper checklist. they might not be as large as yours were. but they're large enough for me to read because I've got old eyes these days. But, I, I, the other reason not to use a checklist is it's hard to handle in the cockpit. I'll give you an example. A lot of times people will use these checklists that are like tri fold, you know, checklists so they fit in the pocket or whatever. But then you're like, Turning pages, basically, and trying to find the right spot on the checklist. I want something, if I'm using an eboard, I want something that'll I can stash somewhere and pull out, hold it up and use it without having to fumble around with two hands, you know what I mean? And so those kinds of things drive me nuts too. So just to add like kind of the physical, I know that we were talking a little earlier about using electronic checklist. We talked about goose. We talked about for flight. There's others also, and I've started experimenting with using more, electronic checklists to see how that fits into my flows and see how that fits into the way that I'm flying. I think the dimension of having goose talk to you. Could be a really good way to go. but however you do it, that's not really what we're focusing on here. It's not really the important thing. The important thing is what's on the checklist so that we're using it. And is it easy to use? Whatever it may be. If it's a laminated card or if it's an electronic, whatever it is, it has to be easy for you to use. So you'll use it.

Yeah. And what I did when I, was first doing my, edited checklists on paper I'd print it on one side. I would have one sheet, a full eight and a half by 11 that I would fold in half

Yes.

into the IFR flight file thing that you could buy from Sporty's that held. paper approach plates back when we use those two. So it was effectively a half sheet, both sides for all my normal procedures and another half sheet, both sides for all the emergency procedures

Love it.

work great. you know, I. was showing you the TBM checklists we were using before, earlier, and those were printed on half sheets. Laminated and then one hole punched in the corner and we just have a little little binder ring And so all the checklists were just on in a little packet on this ring And we just slap them right in between the glare shield and the a pillar. So they were always right there made it super easy and then, you know, as we kind of went through the flight, you'd just through the checklists and you were always right there ready for the next one.

Yep. I usually.

there's a million ways to use them and to format them. And, you know, when I finished this process, I probably will put them in goose and for flight and on Mike Garmin, seven 50 and print them out,

Yes, I was just going to say when you were talking about stashing them on the A pillar, mine and basically any airplane I'm flying is being stashed between, you know, the glare shield and the, and the, the windscreen and, you know, off to the right. Cause I'm flying right seat now all the time. So it's always off to the right, right there. Always easy for me to grab. That's the. Thing I'm scared about the most if I transition to electronic. but like you, I've started thinking, well, why not just have a paper one too? And I'll just have it stashed where I always know what it's at. And I can always pull that out and use it. no matter what, if I don't want to take the extra, you know, couple seconds to get to it on whatever device I've got it on

And it is worth saying, know, we're pilots. We like to have backups for everything,

and true. True. Yep.

you know, paper checklists blow out the window. So they're not the only thing that, you know, I'm sure there are some people who would be like, or you should use paper, but,

Okay. I, I know,

a backup for everything. Even your paper.

I know we're going long, but I have to tell the story because of what you just said. so. When I started a few months back when I started my transition training to the right seat, my very first flight in the right seat, you'll never guess what happened. I was flying a piper. So low wing. It was an archer and it's hot. It's middle of the summer. So we always start the airplane with the doors open in the window open and everything. And one thing I'd never had to deal with. Was the checklist flying out the door and what happened the very first time I flew from the right seat. I started the engine with the checklist on my lap.

Bye

bye. bye. So yeah, I got that engine started, went, I think the checklist just flew out. And so had to shut down, get unstrapped, move the seat back, get out of the airplane, go find it. It had blown under another airplane, you know, about. 30 yards behind and, grab it, bring it back to the airplane and start the procedure all over again. So I had to say that, yes, they sometimes blow out the windows. Sometimes your iPad loses its battery or overheats, whatever. So yes, backups are a good idea. I agree.

Excellent. Well, let's kind of continue with, how we build these things. like I said, we're going to start with factory checklist and literally go through every item and say, okay, why is this here? Should it be somewhere else? Should it be here? At all. Should it be combined with something else? So, you know, I don't know if we're going to actually use video here, but let me share my other screen with you here. So on the left is my factory POH on the right is my Personal checklist. I basically am writing up this whole document with what I am doing and taking notes and all that. So, let me start here with my before start checklist. Basically, I've color coded things here. So if something is still black, it's as it is from the factory. If it's red, it means I eliminated it. If it's orange, it means I have moved it somewhere else. And if it's green, it means I moved it from somewhere else. and then if it's something that I just added, it's blue. So if you look at this, you can see there's not a whole lot of black here.

All right. Right.

like, for example, right here is that masters thing. So they said, master off, alternator off, avionics master off. just changed that to masters off, or masters three off, rather.

Right.

just because of how I formatted it right there, but, this is just notes. This is not my actual checklist. I'm going to, you know, enter this into goose and all the other places, but this is just me keeping track of what I'm doing, in terms of what's different from the factory checklist. So now you can see, okay, right below that alternator and avionics master have been moved away because they're combined into masters and then boost pump switches off. Well, at that and went, okay, there's not a real good reason why they would ever be on at this point anyway. And if they are on, what happens? the negative effect? You

Yeah. Nothing.

on. I hear the pump. I go, well, that's weird. I turned the pump off. It's not going to hurt the airplane. It's not going to hurt me. Get rid of it. Next thing. Directional gyro slave. Okay. Slave DHSI. We never take that thing out of slaving mode. And like, if we had to, it would probably be going to the avionics shop. So, that one. Okay. Well, I'm going to take care of that in the instrument checks. instead of instruments check or something like that, later on, like during taxi, I'm going to say, okay, HSI slaved, moving, matching the compass. you can see a lot of these, are moved to interior pre flight because, you know, I was thinking about these in terms of, If I'm going flying on a summer day, do I need to be doing this sitting in the cockpit sweating or can I do it

Right.

flight inspection? you know, before my passengers show up and all that kind of stuff. So you'll see there's some things I moved to the interior pre flight. There's some things I moved to the engine start checklist. there's some things that like rocker switches all off. Again, what's the consequence here? I want to leave my elevator trim switch on all the time, unless I have a runaway trim scenario, because I've had to replace that switch and it was 325. So there is no reason to be switching that on and off every time when that is an item that pretty much is always going to be on,

Mm hmm.

boost pump. We talked about, pedo heat. I will have checked on the pre flight elsewhere. really there's no reason for me to go through and turn all those off. They're either already off or they have no effect anyway. So got

Right.

flaps up again, this is before start. The only consequential thing with the flaps is that I get them into the takeoff position prior to takeoff.

Yeah. So put them on the pre takeoff checklist.

exactly. And they were already there, which is, you know, that's one reason

Right.

173 items

Exactly.

Um, because for example, I'll have to go and find the, pre takeoff checklists here.

are are the, are the lawyers back when that POH was printed, are they afraid that you might get a stiff wind and if the flaps are down, you might take off while you're taxing? I mean, seriously, what are they worried about?

a lot of stuff that just makes no sense. But if you look on the left side of the screen, about halfway down here is where their before takeoff checklist starts. And if you go through and pass all these notes and everything, and then they have this takeoff checklist, they're basically having you recheck almost everything

Yeah.

takeoff checklist. so, Yeah. Yeah. Unless it's going to kill you, there's no reason to check it more than once. So anyway, the other thing that we want to get rid of is what I'm calling to fly items and do list items. there's a few more of those later on, but like if we look at engine start checklist, I think has some. Oh, like they say low boost on, well, eh, that depends on the type of start. You know, if it's a flooded start or a hot start, you're not doing that. so pretty much I have prop clear and engine start there after a few other things. But you know, if you look

The how to fly thing. I gotta tell you,

mixture, master, how about power levers set for start? Done. Engine. Prime. That covers all the, you know, boost pump and power levers and all that as well lets you edit in your head what's going on because, okay, let's say I'm doing a hot start. Well, this is all different. Mooney put it all in a separate checklist. but that checklist doesn't have all the items on it. So you actually have to do both checklists and then you're skipping items on one. that's just not a good practice anyway. So that it just makes no sense at all. So

I gotta say.

stuff we get rid of

Yeah, I gotta say when you said the how to fly stuff, it, it kind of cracked me up a little bit because while I've been experimenting with these electronic checklists, I'm bringing in these default checklists in ForeFlight, that come from the POHs and, and I pulled one in. I don't even remember which one it was, maybe for a 172 and it had a takeoff checklist and it had things on it like full power, rotate at 60. You know, and I'm just dying, like, are you kidding me? Like, if you're using a checklist while you're on the takeoff roll, you're in serious trouble.

Yes.

So, yeah, crazy.

right there on the left hand side of my screen, again, take off powerful throttle enunciators, check engine instruments, check for proper indications, lift off climb speed as, as specified in section five, landing gear, retract and climb wing flaps up. Like what

is not a good checklist. Yes, that,

is

that is a, that is a how to, not a checklist.

Now I want you to take note of one thing here. The factory checklist jumps straight from before takeoff to takeoff to climb. And if you look over on the right hand side, you can see I have an entire checklist here that I've added. actually, it wasn't even that one. I might have two now that I look at it. Yeah, I haven't colored this yet. So I have an after start checklist that is separate from the before taxi checklist. I also have an after takeoff checklist. now a small GA airplane after takeoff and climb could be combined. and that's, you know, the, the factory checklist has a climb checklist. It's missing a bunch of stuff in my opinion, but it's there. but the reason for after start is that these are a few things that really ought to be done right away. Okay. after the engine is started rather than, you know, starting the engine and then kind of getting distracted with putting the flight plan into the GPS and talking to your passengers about what's happening next and this and that and the other things. So

I, I feel the same way, Kent, and, so some of the checklists I've used have an after, you know, have an after start. what I did when I was making my own checklist is I made the engine start checklist include those items. After starting the engine. so yeah, same thing. Just make sure you finish a checklist or do that next checklist before you move on to other things. Cause yes, there are things that you want to do right after the engine starts. Totally agree.

definitely. So yeah, stuff like to make sure you have oil pressure, your alternators on and charging, you know, your mixtures leaned so you're not following your spark plugs. that sort of stuff, you know, that should be done immediately after the engine is started, because you know, if you don't have oil pressure, you got to get that thing shut down before you damage it. and then you can get into all of the other stuff. you know, really kind of getting ready for the flight. And then when you're ready to taxi or you feel like you're ready to taxi, then you do the before taxi checklist. So,

Totally agree.

and then stuff for, takeoff here again.

I want to point I want to point something out that we touched on earlier, and you'll probably talk about later, but this is a really good example. So I don't want to give up the opportunity for for me. I like to instead of having an extra checklist. I like to add those items on to the. Engine start checklist. Kent may want to have a separate checklist that he does right away called the after takeoff. I'm sorry. The after engine start checklist. this is what we were talking about before when we, when we said that it's really good to create these for yourself because. We may have different, standard operating procedures. We may, think about things slightly differently. And I don't mean just Kent and myself, but every one of us as pilots. And so make these checklists match how it's going to work effectively for you because they're for you. So I just wanted to point that out, that we may all do these things a little bit differently, and that's totally fine. Make it work for you.

Yeah. one thing to note on that though, is that if you're looking toward a career in aviation,

Good point.

you're not going to be able to make your own checklists in a Boeing seven 37 at Southwest airlines. Those will be made for you. and you know, we'll probably talk about standard operating procedures at some point, but, any reasonably sized carrier, whether it's one 35 or one 21 is going to have standard operating procedures so that, you know, you can hop in a cockpit with

does it the same way.

And right, everybody does it the same way and everybody's on the same page. you know, that's a, that's a huge, huge boon to safety for everybody to be doing it the same way.

That is an excellent call out. yep. What I was referring to was for GA, but that is an excellent call out. Yep. Sometimes you'll be in a situation where there's an SOP and that's what you'll be following.

right, what I want to say is I, I'm not disagreeing with you here. However, in the case that you have, let's say, a place that you want to work and you can get checklists from them. You know, if you have a friend that flies there or something like that, what they have. Because one thing, you know, we kind of talked about goose automatically alerting you before, but if you can get into good habits right away anyway, think about, okay, it's after takeoff, I have a checklist to run or I'm climbing through 10, 000 feet. I have a checklist to run, all that sort of thing. That can really be helpful to you later on. and, You know, that's, that's another, reason I had started, looking at this a few years ago, too. Last time I kind of went through this process was, I'm flying a Mooney on my own. I'm flying a TBM in a professional crew environment. I want to make those two things as similar to each other as I can, so that they're reinforcing good habits in both directions.

Excellent point.

If that is your situation, it's worth trying to, you know, things similarly, just so that you get into good habits right off the bat. I realize that's going to be pretty difficult for a lot of people because, you know, you may not know where you're going to go eventually, where you want to go yet, But if you're in a situation where you have that luxury, or if you're already doing some professional flying as well as some GA flying, you know, it's worth trying to make those things as similar as you can make them. So, all that said, it's worth, moving things around a little bit. have seen some checklists where if you follow the order that's on the checklist, it just has you bouncing all over the place. really good checklists, will follow a flow and you can do the flow before you do the checklist. you know, in the TBM, we called it the inverted C because we basically went across the overhead panel down the middle, and then. Back to the left. kind of made things real easy. you know, if you have to jump all over the place, it's going to slow you down. And checklists taking longer is one reason why some people don't use them. So, you know, we're basically trying to take away all those barriers to people using checklists. So make them make sense. you know, Think about why something might have been put in a particular place and why it's there and how moving might affect other checklist items, but in a lot of cases, you're going to find, okay, well, there's really no reason not to move this item in between these other two so that I can just kind of. things off in an order that makes more sense. example of that for, Mooney is like many airplanes. The pre flight checklist you starting at a particular point on the airplane and then going around the whole airplane. Well, a do list.

Yep.

what I did was. when I made it into a checklist is I kind of kind of did it. So it was tail forward. I'm not putting separate items in for right wing and left wing and all that stuff. So, example, I have a static port on both sides of the airplane. I need to check both static ports, but I don't need two separate checklist items for that static

Right.

checked done. so I just kind of went tail to nose, makes sense with the way my airplane is in the hangar and how I would go back and check something if I had missed it. so I think we mentioned this already, but anytime you forget something on a flight, probably worth adding to your checklist, even if it only happens once.

So I've got a

some

I've got a question.

stuff.

I've got a question for you, Kent. you know, going back to that to do list for a pre flight checklist. And obviously I'm, I spend some time flying in a, in a flight school environment and. Once I can get a DPE to do my check ride, I'll probably be spending more time flying in a, in a flight, you know, in a learning environment. I've been kicking around the idea. and I'm, I'm just sort of, running this by you to see what you think. We haven't talked about this before, but I've been kicking around the idea of having a separate sheet of paper that is a pre flight, you know, interior and exterior to do list that. My students could learn how to do it with, but I love the idea of not having that stuff in order on the checklist like you were just talking about. it's one of the biggest checklists there is. One of the biggest sections of the checklist is the pre flight,

yeah,

because there's a lot of things to hit and it's the one part of even my checklist that I feel like are to do lists. And we want to stay away from to do lists on a checklist, right? I find myself not really using it. I carry it around with me. When I'm doing the pre flight, but I've got a flow for the pre flight, and then afterwards, I kind of run my finger down very quickly just to try and make sure I didn't miss anything, but doing that's very difficult when there's so many items. So, I'm kicking around this idea of having a separate sheet. It's not part of the checklist. That's a to do list for a pre flight, having them kind of learn with that, and then check the most critical items on the checklist when they're done to make sure that those things got done, and then pretty soon they won't even need that to do list. You know,

right.

what, what do you think of that idea?

I think it's a great idea. And, you know, like we've already said, checklists can be different for different people. And

Mm hmm.

expand on that to say, checklists can be different for the same person at different times in their flying career. You

Mm.

a hundred percent appropriate for somebody to have a checklist for preflight that has Every single thing on it in order as you go around the entire airplane and repeat stuff from the left wing on the right wing and, you know, all that sort of thing, because they're going to need that initially, you know, after a certain number of flights and they have that down, maybe they can move on to something that's more of a the box. And yes, I checked all those things in all of the places they exist on the airplane without having to do it all

Exactly.

what? Maybe if that person doesn't fly for a while, they go back to the lengthy procedure

The to do list. Yep.

And, you know, a lot of this, especially in something like a 172 that's designed as a trainer, that's why they have all these how to fly items and

That's right.

list items and all that, because it really is kind of an instruction manual for how to fly an airplane in general, but you don't need that forever. so I think, you know, student

and I,

for the

and I don't,

probably go with just what's in the book. And then maybe once they have their private and they're starting to work on their instrument, that's when they kind of knock off some of those things that are feeling obvious to them at that point.

yeah,

as long as it's not a killer item,

some of those items.

some of those things that are IFR or procedural items as they move into their instrument training.

Yeah, but some of those items I don't think belong on a checklist, even for a brand new student, because you're not going to be using a checklist like that. So, so, you know, these are things that they should study and that they should get familiar with and practice and again, maybe have a separate sheet. It's like a cheat sheet, like, okay, this is what a takeoff looks like or whatever it may be, but it probably still doesn't rotate at 55 knots. That doesn't belong on a, on a checklist ever. You're never going to be looking at a checklist when you rotate. So

If

yeah.

on a checklist, it belongs and the before

Briefing in the briefing.

takeoff briefing.

Exactly. Exactly. Yep. All right. All right. We're on the same page. So yeah, something I've been thinking about lately. So I wanted to run it by you.

Yeah. yeah, that's kind of my last bit is to add, you know, good practice procedures like briefing. I don't think I've ever actually seen that on an airline or an airplane. Checklist. you know, what are you going to do if your engine fails? so that's, that's something that, even in the TBM, it may be a fancy turbine airplane, but it's still a single. And so I would always brief, okay, which way am I turning if I'm high enough to try and turn back to the airport? you know, which way is the wind coming from? Where are the, roadways and fields and stuff. You know, I would actually zoom in on the satellite view in for flight and look around the airport a little bit and go, okay, it's all trees to the left, but there's a highway over to the right that we can make it to if we're above, you know, 400 feet off the ground or something like that. Adding things in like that is great. of the nice features goose has is it lets you put tags on checklist items and filter them. So if something is only relevant to an IFR flight, can actually filter out all the IFR items when you go on a VFR flight. you know, we could

That is very interesting.

whether that's actually a good idea or not,

Right, right. That is an interesting concept.

in the TBM, you know, we always kept the checklist exactly the same, but. Uh, we actually did have separate checklists for night currency when we were just going to be staying in the pattern because so many items on the regular checklist were irrelevant on a flight like that. It was completely different than an operational flight would be. But, you know, certain things are still different on a quick, short VFR repositioning flight. That's part 91 compared to, okay, now we're going somewhere with a plane full of passengers, part 135. So,

right. right.

you know, whether you say irrelevant or you just use a feature in the software to skip over it, um, doesn't really matter, but something to think about as well.

Yeah. There is something to be said, always doing it the same way, right.

yep.

Excellent.

Well, I

Well,

pretty much, beat this one to death, huh?

for sure. Yeah, this is good stuff. This is really good stuff.

It's, it's time to run the podcast shutdown checklist.

All right, let me pull that out here. Yeah, so that is, that is good stuff. And I think this is a really good, segue into checklist for somebody who's just beyond the check ride. because you've been flying with somebody else's checklist. Most likely you've been flying with a flight school or, a, an instructor's checklist and you're going to start flying on your own. It's good to be thinking about these things and thinking, you know, how am I going to be able to try and do this the same way every time and use these checklists to keep myself safe, get these killer items completed. And, so can't, I really appreciate you covering this topic so well, especially because you've got a lot of even recent personal experience going through your Mooney checklist. And then of course your professional flying experience, it's really helpful as well. So really appreciate you doing this. Any last ideas or concepts on checklists before we,

Well, I was going to say that there may be some DPEs out there. who are not okay with you using checklists you made yourself. if they're good, I would hope that you could still have a discussion with them and say, here's how I made the checklist. And I started with the factory checklist. I've added things on,

I've combined items, yeah,

right. And you know, for what it's worth, the, checklists that we used, flying the TBMs, are not the factory checklists. They are checklists that we made that the FAA then approved. and I think they may have had to have all of the items from the factory checklists in them, but we definitely added a bunch of our own as

and maybe moved them around a little bit to match your, you know, SOP and all of that, you know,

at least a little bit of precedent. Within the FAA for not using factory checklists because they do approve operators checklists as well. So Hopefully you can have a discussion with an examiner and say hey, look, yes, this is not the factory checklist. However, you know, this is This is how I did it. And this is how I covered all the bases. And hopefully there'll be cool with that. That's not a conversation that I would start, but if they asked about the checklists I was using, know, I would, I would hope that they would still let you use those. But,

And when you're flying somebody else's, when you're flying somebody else's airplane, you might want to check with them too to make sure that they're okay with the checklist you're using, just to make sure that it is covering all the things that's going to protect the airplane itself. But, um, and that would include the reason I bring that up is that would include, for instance, a flight school. so while I did make my own checklist while I've been in, all the flight schools I've been in, I made sure to include all the items they had on theirs. I would just kind of rearrange or reorganize or combine. But I did that out of respect for a these, you know, these are your airplanes. I'm going to make sure that all of these things are on here. your standard operating procedures, you know, I mean, I'm going to follow what you want us to do. when you're flying for yourself, even in a club or you own your own airplane or anything like that, you have a little bit more leeway.

Yeah. And you know, for what it's worth, I created checklists for the diamond star when the club purchased it. Okay. And it was mostly just taking the POH checklist and adding the eight airplane flight manual supplements for various equipment that was installed on it and combining them all because that's something that is easily forgotten. You know, if you don't go and check, okay, how many AFMSs are in the actual physical POH for this airplane, you know, that's, those are important too.

Good point. All right. Well, thanks again, Kent. Great topic. I'm sure that, listeners and viewers will have lots of their own opinions, so let's hear them. You can always reach out to us and you can reach me at bill at studentpilotcast. com and, a bunch of other ways as well on social media. So definitely reach out, comment, whatever you need to do, get it off your chest. We want to hear it. We love to hear feedback and we love to hear ideas from other pilots. So bring it. So Kent, until next time, thanks again. We'll talk to you later.

All right. We'll see ya.

Well, thanks for hanging out with us for this beyond the check ride episode. And we hope you enjoyed it. I'm sure some of you are fired up about the topic and have some opinions of your own. So please reach out and let us know your thoughts. You can reach us via email at bill at student pilotcast. com or via the contact page on the website. You can also reach out via X using at bill. Well, that's Bravo, India, Lima, Lima, whiskey, India, Lima. And we do have a. Instagram account for the podcast called appropriately student pilot cast. So feel free to contact us there if you want to. That said, I want everyone to have a Merry Christmas and a great new year. And keep the dirty side down by using good checklists and using them well. So we'll catch you on the next one.