I despise long checklists. The chance of landing with
the gear UP is directly proportional to the length
of the checklist followed. The more checklist items
you follow, the less time spent doing something important.

Oh, unless putting the gear down is just repeated throughout
the checklist umpteen times

A very real exception, however, is the airspeed. Might
be a useful item for those who fly a lot of different
aircraft, or at different weights. But even then it
***might*** be ignored if the runway is long enough


Takeoff checklist seems to be another matter entirely.
I look carefully through the fatal accident reports
and prioritize my checklist by what killed the most
pilots in type. Do THAT stuff at the beginnning AND
the end of the checklist...

At 05:12 27 December 2005, wrote:
A checklist should only be used for actions that are
not routinely done
during flight, and are essential to the procedure (landing,
in this
case). So really, the only thing needed for most glider
landings, is
making sure the gear is down (if it's retractable in
the first place).
Everything else listed in the common Before Landing
'checklists' are
just reminders.

Note that the same logic applies to before takoff checklists
- they
should only cover items that are critical to the maneuver
about to be
accomplished - takeoff and flight in this case.

Some of the actions listed are a joke. Airspeed?
Especially in
gliders, we are always adjusting our airspeed to the
phase of flight we
are in - cruising, thermalling, pattern, landing.
No checklist needed.
Trim? Ditto - and pretty obvious if not done. Flaps?
Sure, when
appropriate - but depends on winds, etc.. and you've
been playing with
them since takeoff anyway, haven't you? Traffic?
YGTBSM! When in
flight can you not be looking for traffic!

So - reminders are fine - but don't get hung up in
the pattern trying
to remember what the second L in WUFSTALLLLSWAFTWTFO
means. By all
means prepare yourself for landing by getting ready
and analyzing the
environment; but fundamentally landing is no different
from entering or
leaving a thermal! Do you have a pre-thermalling and
a
post-thermalling checklist?

The classic old power plane/military GUMP (Gas Undercarriage
Mixture
Propeller) check was created to ensure that the critical,
life-or-death
(or at least -damage) items were checked in the pattern
prior to
landing. Since we glider pilots don't usually have
any G, or an M or P
to worry about, only the U would seem to be useful
for that small
percentage of the gliding community fortunate enough
to be able to land
gear up.

And when we are blessed to be tooling around the pattern
in a 2-33 or a
K-13 or whatever - tell the front seat stick actuator
to quit yakking
about 'wufstall' or 'swafts' (whatever they are) and
just land the darn
thing! As slow as possible! Preferably on the runway!

Kirk
66

Oh, and a nice loud 'Shut up and look out the window!'
is almost always
called for...especially when there are nice shiny gadgets
on the panel
to look at...