The International Cessna 170 Association

ghostflyer wrote: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.

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".

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

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

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.