Wingrunner Checklist

Originally Posted by Tony[_5_]

of course the buck stops with the pilot but the wingrunner, towpilot and any knowledgable bystanders are all part of the safety net. an american cheese model of safety does not work, we have swiss cheese. case in point, Sean Fidler (F2) who does like to drive us all crazy in the winter, managed to save a couple pilots lives at Uvalde as they nearly took off with the cover on their horizontal stabilizer. the wing runner didn't notice, the two presumably experienced pilots didn't notice, and their presumably well trained crew missed it. sometimes you need a lot of layers of swiss chees before all the holes were filled.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuTBQIb721g

Agree,

But even more so, most of us operate from clubs, and we want the club to remain strong and in operation, and part of that is ensuring the club is a professional, safe and dependable operation. This helps with insurance costs directly and costs of club aircraft or facilities, but also helps with perception of the operations at the club, perceptions or feelings people have about the culture of the club, and lastly it's important to the sport itself to entice new piltos, keep the FAA at bay, and to ensure someone else has our six.

This includes wing runners going over the major things that can cause an emergency in one of the phases of flight where soaring pilots have them the most: Take-offs. Canopies and spoilers locked, dollies and covers removed, pattern is deconflicted for takeoffs and landings.

While no one doubts the PIC is ultimately responsible for this, having the wing runner check these things is not an onerous task, and I as Duty officer say it out loud and ask my ADO's to do the same, as a last safety and sanity check. Our club is even starting to consider having the duty crew ask private ships is they accomplished a critical assembly and/or positive control check as a last chance reminder as well. It's not intrusive, and it's not out of bounds--it's just a help which takes no time and could save an incident or accident.

I hope no one is against prevention.

Cheers
Squeak