I'm currently reading a book by one of the first women to become a fighter pilot in the RAF.  She flew Tornados in the no-fly zone over Iraq.

When she was training she said one of the hardest parts was memorizing checklists.

I always thought that was a no-no.  The going down the printed checklist or having a co-pilot read them off to was the way to go.

I recall an incident when I was in the Air Force.  I was doing something in the hangar and on the other side a load crew was qualifying for loading a nuclear weapon on a B-57.  The crew chief was reading off the check list when the load crew was having a problem getting the fin of the weapon to clear the bomb-bay.  The crew chief put down his clip board and went back to help them.  The certifying officer failed them because the crew chief put down the checklist.

Once I was taking my neighbor on a flight in a Cessna 152.  We were in the aircraft and I was going through the cockpit checklist and was setting up the ground control frequency when I realized I had left my charts on the FBO counter.

I got out of the plane and ran back to the FBO and retrieved my charts.

I got back into the aircraft and continued the check list.  I started the engine and taxied to the end of the runway.  I got clearance to take off and as soon as were airborne we heard a thumping noise on the side of the aircraft behind the cockpit.

I told the tower I had a problem and had to land.  He asked if I was declaring an emergency.  I said no.  He said pick the closest runway and land.

I landed, taxied to the parking area, and shut down the engine.  I got out of the aircraft and the line boy was running toward me.  I was extremely red-faced when I realized I had forgotten to fasten my seatbelt when I returned to the aircraft with my charts,  The thumping noise  we heard was the seatbelt buckle banging against the fuselage in the slipstream.  In my haste I left the seatbelt hanging out the door.

From that day on whatever aircraft I was flying I always started the checklist over again from the beginning if I was interrupted. 

Memorizing checklists is an invitation to forget a step or two, especially if you are in a hurry or interrupted.

Noel

PS...There are two excellent books books about women overcoming the obstacles and prejudices when invading an all male environment.

Fly Like a Girl by Mary Jennings Hegar is about a woman who became a National Guard air rescue helicopter pilot and flew 3 combat tours in Afghanistan.  She was shot down and wounded on her final tour.

An Officer,  Not a Gentleman by Mandy Hickson is the account of a woman who became the second female combat pilot in the RAF flying combat missions over the no-fly zone in Iran in a Tornado. 

And thank you Sue for sending these to to me. 

Edited May 17, 20215 yr by birdguy

On 5/17/2021 at 5:03 PM, birdguy said:

When she was training she said one of the hardest parts was memorizing checklists.

Perhaps a part of the answer is this:
Many non-normal checklist are preceded by what is called "memory items".  And those are required that you learn by heart.

EASA definition

Quote

Memory items (alternately known as recall or immediate action items) may be described as ‘an action that must be taken in response to a non-routine event so quickly that reference to a checklist is not practical because of a potential loss of aircraft control, incapacitation of a crewmember, damage to or loss of an aircraft component or system, which would make continued safe flight improbable’ [FAA, 1995]. As such, in the event of an emergency situation arising, memory items should be accomplished from memory alone before the checklist is called for or read.

Even a simple PPL chump like myself knows my aircraft's emergency checklist from memory.

As I read the book I got the impression she was having more problems memorizing printed checklists than things like

GUMPS  

Undercarriage down

Mixture set

Power

Seatbelt and Switches on

OR PUFFS

Propeller forward

Undercarriage Down

Flaps (wing) extended

Flaps (cowl) closed

Seatbelt and Switches on

Noel

 

The problem is, that anecdote you relate where the seatbelt was outside the canopy occurred when you were using a checklist, which shows that it's not the checklists/memory items which are the problem, it's not using them properly which is the issue. In this case getting interrupted, which has been the classic cause of a number of fatal accidents, including airliners trying to take off without flaps, not pressurising properly and so on.

But beyond interruptions to your flow, it's very easy to simply do lip-service to a checklist rather than genuinely check things, particularly with stuff which is never normally altered. A good example of that is Helios Airways Flight 522 (a B737-300 which climbed up to cruise without pressurisation, killing all on board and continuing to fly across Europe until it ran out of fuel and crashed on an island in the Med). The automatic cabin pressurisation switch was left in the manual position by an engineer when checking for a pressurisation leak on the rear passenger door which required faffing about with the cabin pressure on the ground.

The co-pilot on Flight 522 did not physically check the switch on the overhead when they were going through the checklists, because normally crews left it on automatic, but the fact that it could be moved to other settings means that he absolutely should have actually 'set and checked' the switch rather than just lazily going through the checklist and assuming it was as it normally was.

What is worse is that the crew then got a warning as they reached a few thousand feet on the climb which was alerting them to the problem, but they failed to do the correct thing to sort the problem out and as a result everyone on board was killed. Boeing subsequently altered the checklist for the 737 to draw more attention to this potential issue, but it was not really the checklist which was the problem, it was not following procedures properly which was the issue, and that would have been the same whether it was a checklist or a memory item; it was the sloppy approach to using these which was the problem.

So the same would be true of a mnemonic, which is useful for memory stuff, but it's only useful if you do it properly, for example I use CB-SIFT-CBE as the pre-take of for gliders (controls, ballast, straps, instruments, flaps, trim, canopy, brakes, eventualities), but it's only useful if you actually genuinely do it all properly. Like yourself, I stuffed up with the straps once on take off. I dutifully did my mnemonic, but what I also did was tighten the straps too much since it was the first time I was flying a single seater type so there was obviously a little bit of trepidation creeping into the mix. As I climbed out from the airfield on take off, I found I could not reach the panel to make a radio call because the straps wouldn't let me move forward enough lol.

So I just flew the take off and worried about it afterwards when not busy with more important things - aviate, navigate, communicate as they say - but it does tell you that whilst checklists and memory items are useful, they ain't foolproof by any stretch of the imagination; someone will always find a way to break stuff. 🤣

8 minutes ago, Chock said:

The problem is, that anecdote you relate where the seatbelt was outside the canopy occurred when you were using a checklist, which shows that it's not the checklists/memory items which are the problem, it's not using them properly which is the issue. In this case getting interrupted,

Exactly Chock.  Instead of starting the check list over again I simply continued where I had left off.  Pilot Error!

When I was working in engineering one company I worked for had three standard questions when things went wrong.

1 - Was there a procedure?

2 -  Is the procedure correct?

3 - Was the procedure followed?

I think that about covers it.  Goes for checklists too.

Noel

I learned another lesson from this once. I was working on a plane on I think stand 6 at EGCC, and some colleagues were also working on one on the adjacent stand 8. the headset guy on that flight was going off-shift, and so they shouted over to me to come over and push that plane out as it was due to go right that moment. So I went over and proceeded to do a walkaround check, but they all shouted to me that it had been done and to get on with the push. Frankly, I think it was unprofessional and not very conscientious of the guy to go off-shift without finishing the job, and I personally would not do that, but that's besides the point, and as we'll see, it's that sort of thing which can lead to mistakes.

I knew this could not be actually true that the guy had done a proper walkaround because the steps were still on the front of the aeroplane, and you can't do a proper walkaround check when GSE is still on the aircraft, because you have to check it hasn't damaged the probes when on the aeroplane (you check that after it has been removed). So I did insist on checking that despite their protestations to 'get on with it'. 

So, having checked the probes and made sure the door was shut, I hurried to the left side, plugged in the headset and did a very hurried brake check etc, then looked behind quickly to make sure nothing was taxying past, and signalled the tug to release brakes and commence the push. At this point someone pointed to the rear of the airliner (an Aer Lingus Airbus 321) and I saw there was still a cone at its rear. So much for the guy telling me he'd done a walkaround. so we had to briefly stop the push so I could unplug, run to the rear of the plane, remove the cone, run back, put the headset back on and continue the push and supervise the engine start etc. 

Afterwards, I got chewed out for not having done a thorough walkaround (just my luck for this to have occurred on the stand which is literally right outside the Menzies Aviation offices, and so obviously seen by a few people at my company), to which I said I wanted to do one but the TL had told me one had been done and had told me to get on with it. But they wouldn't accept that as an excuse and said it was my fault. They were right too; I should have told the ground crew that I wasn't going to do the push without having done a walkaround for myself, and if they didn't like it, they could find someone else to do the push (not that anyone was available, but tough luck), but instead I bowed to pressure and didn't do that. It's a mistake I'll never make again.

Edited May 20, 20215 yr by Chock

Some old aircraft and military one's checklists are basiclly SOP, for eg the DC8 and Concorde's one as I know them with P3D/XP

The F16's offical chekclists are also long and complex as almost SOP, I really never use them when flying BMS4.

 

I really like the post-2000's new Boeing checklist philosophy, in someway I fees it's better than Buses one, I now fly E190, MD80 and 717 in P3D with my own version of flow and Normal checklist made with Boeing's philosophy, by me.

Edited May 21, 20215 yr by C2615