Checklist???????????????? A) Is it an Airliner? or B) A ‘checklist’ will blow out of the cockpit…….. :rolleyes:

Before flight:
TTMPFFICHH

well, there is a P and one F I don’t have

Before landing: BUMPF 😀

B, no parking one so just check heels are free
U, down and welded.
M, Rich
P wooden and fixed
F, don’t fly for more than 3 hours (very inaccurate gauges)

However, joking aside I had one of those “Glad I noticed that” moments yesterday. My tailwheel was going flat so I tried pumping it up and that did not good as there was a split next to the valve stem. Luckily I had a spare tube so jacked the back of the aeroplane up to whip the wheel off and replace the tube. As I did I noticed that the tailwheel strut was loose.

To cut a long story short, there is a fitting at the front of the tailwheel strut that fixes to either side of the lower longeron. This has two AN4 bolts which run through sleeves. The sleeves were actually a little long and so the nuts were not closing the fitting up. I should have noticed this before but when the tail is on the ground it was not apparent. Fortunately the tyre was flat!

The point is that this would never have appeared on a checklist but still needs checking. Checklists are an aide memoire for the important things and are more useful on complex types that have more systems but for all aircraft they should only ever be a starting point and a close eye should be kept on everything else.