This is an essay on how, where, when and why to use checklists for flying small aircraft by Private Pilots. The Author, a Flight Instructor and Examiner with more than 25 years of experience, offers some insights and valuable advise to the Reader who may be an Aviator or aspiring to become a better Pilot.

Private Pilots, with modern but simple planes and no strict selection criteria to become a pilot, might not always be willing to be told how to do things and follow orders blindly… we need to be taught intelligently and we want to get value for our money paid for flying lessons. Thus I hope this article will explain the reasons why, when and how we use various Checklists and Drills before during and after flight.

The concept and practice of checklists has been borrowed extensively by the medical profession to reduce errors of omission and commission, during heart surgery and many other types of complex operations.
Consultants and contractors use checklists too, however bureaucrats in all governments have given the checklist a bad name by creating a tick-box culture where the recipient or user of the list simply aims to ‘tick all the boxes’ without adequate comprehension of the end results or the frustrations caused to people who cannot see the entire process and what it will achieve or not at the end of the list.