Checklist Procedures
This section goes through the process of learning to run your checklist so you are smooth and efficient. The first three simulator events (C2101-2103) are primarily there for you to wear all of your gear and gain proficiency and instructional feedback on accomplishing all of the checklists. You will need to do a good amount of practice prior to these events. But where do you start?
Learning Techniques
You can practice checklist via the T-6B photo you've been provided, the static sims, or UTDs if available. Getting the checklist down is simply learning the steps and what you do in each step then repeating it until you are smooth, efficient, and timely. As a guide to measure your timeliness, look to be able to run the Cockpit Checklist thru the Before Taxi Checklist in 30 minutes (20 minutes is optimal). You will need to be able to run all of the checklist smoothly, however, this is a good gauge to start out.
To learn the checklist, it may help to run an individual checklist several times before moving on. For example, begin by running the Cockpit Checklist five or six times. The first couple times would be with the Checklist Study Guide so you understand what you are doing/looking for and how you respond. The next couple times would be with the Practice Quadfold, taking away the paragraphs that tell you what to do/look for on each item but keeps the correct responses. And finally, the next couple times would be right off the unaltered Quadfold to verify you know both the actions you accomplish as well as the correct responses. You will note that the responses in the Checklist Study Guide and the Quadfold are not always the same! This technique will gain you quicker familiarity with the checklist items by limiting your exposure in the beginning and not doing everything at once while remembering nothing. It will also help you see that there is a "flow" to the checklist as you move through the cockpit accomplishing items. After you feel confident with the Cockpit Checklist items, move on to do it and add the Engine Start Checklist. Do this several times and then add the next checklist to the sequence. This ensures a good amount of repetition of each checklist but does not have you add more until you are ready and competent with the prior ones. As you can see, this will take time and effort to accomplish.
You are also required, by the Contact FTI, to commit a few checklists to memory; these are from the Lineup Checklist thru the Before Landing Checklist but does not include the Climb or Descent Checklists. Here are some ways (acronyms) to help you commit them to memory which are also put on the practice quafold:
--Lineup Checklist "LT PANE": Ext Lights, Transponder, Probes & Anti-ice, Nosewheel steering, EICAS
--Operations Checklist "HE-FOE PP": Hydraulics, Electrics, Fuel, Oxygen, Engine, Pressurization, Postion
--Climb Checklist "Old Dead Vice Presidents": OBOGS, Defog, Vent control lever, Pressurization
--Pre-stall, Spinning, Aerobatic Checklist "Leaf Check": Loose items, Engine instruments, Fuel
--Descent Checklist "Pam's a Diva": PFD, Altimeters, Master arm, Defog, Vent control lever
-Before Landing Checklist: A geometric triangle between three areas: 1.) The Defog switch & brake pedals behind it, 2.) The Engine instruments & CAS, 3.) The gear & flap indicators. You first move thru the triangle counter-clockwise (defog, engine instruments, gear, brakes) and then clockwise (flaps, Speedbrake light). See picture:
To learn the checklist, it may help to run an individual checklist several times before moving on. For example, begin by running the Cockpit Checklist five or six times. The first couple times would be with the Checklist Study Guide so you understand what you are doing/looking for and how you respond. The next couple times would be with the Practice Quadfold, taking away the paragraphs that tell you what to do/look for on each item but keeps the correct responses. And finally, the next couple times would be right off the unaltered Quadfold to verify you know both the actions you accomplish as well as the correct responses. You will note that the responses in the Checklist Study Guide and the Quadfold are not always the same! This technique will gain you quicker familiarity with the checklist items by limiting your exposure in the beginning and not doing everything at once while remembering nothing. It will also help you see that there is a "flow" to the checklist as you move through the cockpit accomplishing items. After you feel confident with the Cockpit Checklist items, move on to do it and add the Engine Start Checklist. Do this several times and then add the next checklist to the sequence. This ensures a good amount of repetition of each checklist but does not have you add more until you are ready and competent with the prior ones. As you can see, this will take time and effort to accomplish.
You are also required, by the Contact FTI, to commit a few checklists to memory; these are from the Lineup Checklist thru the Before Landing Checklist but does not include the Climb or Descent Checklists. Here are some ways (acronyms) to help you commit them to memory which are also put on the practice quafold:
--Lineup Checklist "LT PANE": Ext Lights, Transponder, Probes & Anti-ice, Nosewheel steering, EICAS
--Operations Checklist "HE-FOE PP": Hydraulics, Electrics, Fuel, Oxygen, Engine, Pressurization, Postion
--Climb Checklist "Old Dead Vice Presidents": OBOGS, Defog, Vent control lever, Pressurization
--Pre-stall, Spinning, Aerobatic Checklist "Leaf Check": Loose items, Engine instruments, Fuel
--Descent Checklist "Pam's a Diva": PFD, Altimeters, Master arm, Defog, Vent control lever
-Before Landing Checklist: A geometric triangle between three areas: 1.) The Defog switch & brake pedals behind it, 2.) The Engine instruments & CAS, 3.) The gear & flap indicators. You first move thru the triangle counter-clockwise (defog, engine instruments, gear, brakes) and then clockwise (flaps, Speedbrake light). See picture:
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Checklist Study Guide |
General
The first pages of the Checklist Study Guide provide you with a lot of very good information. It describes how to use the guide and run checklists as well as what is expected of you at the beginning. Please read through it to reinforce the requirements. Here is a short summation:
--Always bring the required items (gloves, kneeboard, IFG, Quadfold, NATOPs, PCL, FTI, flt gear)
--Arriving at aircraft, always check the pins and ISS selector then call appropriately ("Two pins in")
--Open and close all checklist ("Cockpit Checklist" & "Cockpit Checklist complete")
--Accomplish items in Challenge-Action-Response format (know what to looking for & the response)
--Ensure dual response items get answered (marked "Both", & also highlighted in yellow on Quadfold)
--Leaving aircraft, always check pins, PCL, starter/ignition and call ("Two pins in, Off, Normal, Normal")
The first pages of the Checklist Study Guide provide you with a lot of very good information. It describes how to use the guide and run checklists as well as what is expected of you at the beginning. Please read through it to reinforce the requirements. Here is a short summation:
--Always bring the required items (gloves, kneeboard, IFG, Quadfold, NATOPs, PCL, FTI, flt gear)
--Arriving at aircraft, always check the pins and ISS selector then call appropriately ("Two pins in")
--Open and close all checklist ("Cockpit Checklist" & "Cockpit Checklist complete")
--Accomplish items in Challenge-Action-Response format (know what to looking for & the response)
--Ensure dual response items get answered (marked "Both", & also highlighted in yellow on Quadfold)
--Leaving aircraft, always check pins, PCL, starter/ignition and call ("Two pins in, Off, Normal, Normal")
Challenge Column
What you call in the challenge is not always what is on the Quadfold. For example, the Quadfold says "BAT switch" and the correct challenge call is "Battery". You will not say "switch" throughout the checklist (except STARTER switch) even though the Quadfold has listed items that way. Additionally, abbreviated items on the Quadfold (BATT, GEN, UFCP, etc.) are called out fully in the challenge (Battery, Generator, Up Front Control Panel, etc.). The practice Quadfold has eliminated the word "switch" on all of the items but retained the abbreviations for brevity.
What you call in the challenge is not always what is on the Quadfold. For example, the Quadfold says "BAT switch" and the correct challenge call is "Battery". You will not say "switch" throughout the checklist (except STARTER switch) even though the Quadfold has listed items that way. Additionally, abbreviated items on the Quadfold (BATT, GEN, UFCP, etc.) are called out fully in the challenge (Battery, Generator, Up Front Control Panel, etc.). The practice Quadfold has eliminated the word "switch" on all of the items but retained the abbreviations for brevity.
Checklist Study Guide
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Practice Quadfold
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Quadfold
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Action Column
This column shows you what you must accomplish after the challenge or what you look for prior to giving a response. You will need to know these with no excuses! This is the cornerstone of accomplishing a checklist. If you do not know what to do or look for, the checklist is useless. Spend time understanding what each step requires. Some steps will not required an explanation of the action because of obviousness.
Instructors will watch you to see if you accomplish what is required or they may ask you what the step entails. For example, when you turn on the TAD, you are required to check the "TAD OFF" advisory extinguishes on the CAS. If your head never moves right to view the CAS, the instructor will probably ask you what you are looking for as he did not physically see you turn to check it.
Additionally, you will find a tendency to mumble the required action while accomplishing it. This is mainly from the human trait of walking yourself through steps and processes. While most Instructors understand that you will do this in the beginning, they will push you away from saying things as you improve because it slows down the checklist process.
Response Column
This is another place where the checklist response and what is printed on the Quadfold are two different things. With the battery step example above, the Quadfold shows you respond with "ON" but the actual response you will give is "ON, xx.x volts". This is where the repetition of practice helps solidify these differences. The practice Quadfold was built with the correct responses in it to help bridge this gap. Remember that if it's highlighted in yellow and says "(BOTH)", you are required to get a response from the rear cockpit before moving on. If they do not respond, just repeat the challenge callout. Also, do not to use the word "is" with your response. For example, "Generator....is OFF" should just be "Generator...OFF".
This column shows you what you must accomplish after the challenge or what you look for prior to giving a response. You will need to know these with no excuses! This is the cornerstone of accomplishing a checklist. If you do not know what to do or look for, the checklist is useless. Spend time understanding what each step requires. Some steps will not required an explanation of the action because of obviousness.
Instructors will watch you to see if you accomplish what is required or they may ask you what the step entails. For example, when you turn on the TAD, you are required to check the "TAD OFF" advisory extinguishes on the CAS. If your head never moves right to view the CAS, the instructor will probably ask you what you are looking for as he did not physically see you turn to check it.
Additionally, you will find a tendency to mumble the required action while accomplishing it. This is mainly from the human trait of walking yourself through steps and processes. While most Instructors understand that you will do this in the beginning, they will push you away from saying things as you improve because it slows down the checklist process.
Response Column
This is another place where the checklist response and what is printed on the Quadfold are two different things. With the battery step example above, the Quadfold shows you respond with "ON" but the actual response you will give is "ON, xx.x volts". This is where the repetition of practice helps solidify these differences. The practice Quadfold was built with the correct responses in it to help bridge this gap. Remember that if it's highlighted in yellow and says "(BOTH)", you are required to get a response from the rear cockpit before moving on. If they do not respond, just repeat the challenge callout. Also, do not to use the word "is" with your response. For example, "Generator....is OFF" should just be "Generator...OFF".
Checklist Study Guide
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Practice Quadfold
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Quadfold
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And now the big questions: Why do the responses not line up? In the fleet you will not see this...but this is training. In primary training, there is a higher risk to what we do; therefore, we've built into the checklist the items where Instructors need to know you are doing or looking at the right thing. The changed responses verify this for your Instructor and help control risk by ensuring proper operations. So why not change the Quadfold? This is because the NATOPS is the source document and you would have to change the NATOPS first. The difficult part is that the T-6 is flown by multiple users and not all will agree that our responses are what they want use in their operations.
Other
The guide also has miscellaneous items built into it from the FWOP and FMS setup briefing. These items include: hand signals you may need to give, a short explanation of what is going on at the specific step, FMS screens or data entry, frequency changes and radio calls, etc. This is important so you can see the bigger picture and context of what is happening while you are accomplishing the checklist. The practice Quadfold retains these items but realize the main Quadfold will not.
Other
The guide also has miscellaneous items built into it from the FWOP and FMS setup briefing. These items include: hand signals you may need to give, a short explanation of what is going on at the specific step, FMS screens or data entry, frequency changes and radio calls, etc. This is important so you can see the bigger picture and context of what is happening while you are accomplishing the checklist. The practice Quadfold retains these items but realize the main Quadfold will not.
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Practice Quadfold
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The practice Quadfold was designed (by T6BDriver.com) to help bridge the gap between all the differences in the Checklist Study Guide and Quadfold. It is an approach of easing into the Quadfold vice going straight cold turkey. Because there are so many differences, it is easy to keep making many little errors and get frustrated. The concept is to understand what a particular checklist entails and practice it via the study guide. You would then move to the practice Quadfold to practice that checklist and have many of the crutches eliminated.
The practice Quadfold accomplishes a few things if used correctly. First, it gets you in the habit of reading and following the true Quadfold format vice a book format like the guide. Second, it doesn't tell you what you need to do or look for but retains the correct responses you need to make with each item. This makes things less overwhelming and more chance for success (less frustration with errors). Finally, it retains all the little extras like radios and FWOP procedures so you can get conditioned to where these occur.
The practice Quadfold accomplishes a few things if used correctly. First, it gets you in the habit of reading and following the true Quadfold format vice a book format like the guide. Second, it doesn't tell you what you need to do or look for but retains the correct responses you need to make with each item. This makes things less overwhelming and more chance for success (less frustration with errors). Finally, it retains all the little extras like radios and FWOP procedures so you can get conditioned to where these occur.
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Quadfold
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The actual Quadfold is the end state. You need to be able to run the various checklist smoothly, efficiently, and competently. You are not supposed to mark on the Quadfold as the requirement is to use an unaltered Quadfold for operations. At this point, this is where the lineup card and radio call gouge sheets come in. Have those with you on your kneeboard to write information down and to help incase you draw a blank. This is not saying you should not make every effort to know the radio calls by memory. You need to know them! But everyone draws a blank every once in awhile and that gouge sheet is there to keep you learning it the correct way vice some arbitrary attempt. Before you know it, after half a dozen flights, you will not need the radio call gouge anymore.
This example video (may be outdated) will help you see a run-thru of the Cockpit Checklist to the Before Taxi Checklist. It is meant to help you see how to run a checklist and what you are looking for during the steps.