You don't check the door is locked on the ground because it is a flight safety issue, it is not. The airplane will fly fine with the door unlatched. You check it because an unlatched the door will pop open half way through the takeoff which will scare the passengers. Also for most Pipers and Beechcraft's you can't close a popped door in flight so you have to come back and land which is a pain. I still see no need to check it as part of the prelanding check which was the specific point the original poster was talking about.photofly wrote:I don't want to make mountains out of molehills here, but have you - or your passengers - never accidentally caught your sleeve on a Cessna door handle in flight? Are you sure that if your passenger did they'd be sure to put it back? If it's not even a tiny flight safety issue, then why bother checking it on the ground?
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You are right my response was unnecessarily sarcastic. However I think there is a larger point to make. Instructors need to do some critical thinking about what they are teaching. There is IMO too many FTU-isms mindlessly passed down through each generation of instructors. As an instructor you should be able to answer the "why" question for everything you do.
In this example if you ask yourself "why" you need to check the door is latched on the before landing checklist and then rank this answer in order of importance with all the other things that must be done/should be done/nice to be done; prior to landing I think you will find it very near the bottom of the list.......