Originally Posted by
Podracer
You're lucky it's so easy for you!
In my RJ captain years I almost never did walk arounds because I didn't have time for them. I still gotta check all the stuff, figure out how to get around the weather, brief FAs, comply with MELs, deal with whatever random problem **** is happening. There's some things to delegate but a lot of things my eyes need to set least pass over it. Trust but verify. There's no time I ever felt more busy as a captain than preflighting at the gate. But we also had -45m instead of 1hr, oftentimes as much as little as -20m on quick turns. The walk around was the least of my priorities. Out you go, my eyes are better applied to the plan than the scratch and dented log.
If finishing your walkaround at D-40 doesn't leave you enough time to find a path around a thunderstorm and read through MELs, you're pretty bad at your job. Arguably "applying your eyes" over the aircraft itself on a walkaround is just as important as anything else you mentioned. Maybe more so, with icing or CSFF considerations. If every mission is a helmet fire you're doing it wrong.