Flight Controls Free / Active

[DaveF]

when you inspect some thing and you expect to be in a certain configuration and you are under pressure or distracted and you look at it but it doesn't register in the brain that it not what it should be .

That's it exactly! Every time I preflight I stop and ask myself whether I'm really looking at the airplane or just dragging my eyes over it.

[blueldr]

It has been far too many years ago to remember what kind of a check list we used going through flight training in the three phases prior to graduation in the USAAF. I had graduated from single engine school at Luke Field in AZ. and was sent to multi engine training in B-25s at Mather Field in CA. To this day I can remember the flight instructor giving us a "Check List" to memorise. It was "C I G F T P R", But I'm damned if I can remember what in hell they stood for.
I think maybe it was:
C = Controls
I = Instruments
G = Gas
F = Flaps
T = Trim
P = Props
R = Run Up
If that is correct, How in hell did anyone ever learn how to keep from killing themselves ? Actually, we did kill a lot of guys in training back in those days. I guess we were considered "expendables".

[C170U2]

The "checklist" was born with the B-17. On the first flight they forgot to remove the elevator lock and did some serious damage. The checklist did a lot for making aviation a hell of a lot safer.

http://www.airforcemag.com/MagazineArch ... klist.aspx

[blueldr]

C170U2,
If I'm not mistaken, the B-17 accident you refer to totalled the experimental airplane and killed the crew.

[C170U2]

The airplane was lost but luckily 3 out of the 5 crew members lived. From then on the checklist became integral to the way the Air Force did business....or at least thats the story they told us in our CRM class.