Understand see and avoid concepts to keep safe separation between aircraft.

Do you remember driver’s education where you were taught about blind spots? Well not only do we not have mirrors on our airplanes, we don’t have sides of the road to stay on, traffic signals, and have the vertical dimension to be avoiding other aircraft.

There are no roads in the sky, so you must be vigilant in staying away from other aircraft by scanning, listening, and maintaining situational awareness.

Understand the things that can affect vision and thinking regarding situational awareness. Know proper methods of avoiding other traffic in the sky. Understand where the greatest risk of collision is in order to avoid or have a heightened sense of awareness.

Visual Scanning and Collision Avoidance

Development:

Relationship between a pilot’s physical condition and vision

• Vision is affected by sleep, drugs, alcohol, and overall health

Environmental conditions that degrade vision

Vestibular and visual illusions  PHAK 16-6

• The leans—bank too slow, fluid in ear canal doesn’t move
• Coriolis Illusion—when turning long enough, fluid slows to be moving at the same speed
• Graveyard spiral—Coriolis illusion tricks pilot to return to bank, compensates for loss of altitude by pulling up and tightens descending spiral
• Somatogravic illusion—rapid acceleration feels like nose up
• Inversion illusion—change from climb to straight-and-level feels like tumbling backward
• Elevator illusion—abrupt upward (or downward) movement feels like a climb
• Postural Considerations—seat of pants flying

“See and avoid” concept

• Consistently be looking for traffic
• Listen to and make radio calls to visualize where other aircraft are located; direction, speed, and altitude
• Alter your path/speed/altitude if necessary to create adequate spacing with other aircraft

Proper visual scanning procedure

• Scan the visual field in 10° increments, pausing at each section for a few seconds to notice any movement against the background

Relationship between poor visual scanning habits and increased collision risk

• How many mid-air collisions do you think happen between two flight crews being vigilant in scanning for traffic and taking precautions to avoid others?
• Divide your attention between the cockpit and outside, with the vast majority of attention going toward outside the aircraft

Proper clearing procedures

• Clearing turns are usually at least 180° change in direction, looking for traffic (Jeppesen Private Pilot pg. 4-6)
• A 90° turn in one direction and a turn back to the original heading has been deemed satisfactory
• Be vigilantly scanning for traffic during these clearing turns

Importance of knowing aircraft blind spots

• By understanding where you know you can’t see, you can maneuver the aircraft to see most of these areas.
• There is a large portion behind and below the aircraft that is never seen from the cockpit, but clearing turns greatly reduce this void temporarily

Relationship between aircraft speed differential and collision risk

• Imagine the difference between riding a pedal tricycle down the road verses a bullet bike.  The same bolting dog in the road would be more difficult to avoid on the fast bike.

Situations which involve the greatest collision risk

• Where there is the most traffic

1. 1. Traffic patterns

• Entering traffic pattern unaware of current traffic

1. 1. Approach to a busier airport
   2. Departure to common routes like Provo’s practice areas
   3. Enroute on popular Victor Airways

• Clear cloudless beautiful days

1. 1. “It’s a great flying day today”—everyone and their dog seems to go flying on the days with beautiful weather
   2. Weekends commonly have more recreational traffic

• Common departure and arrival times at international airports
• Not all VFR traffic is talking with Air Traffic Control, or on the airport frequency

Conclusion and Evaluation:

It is important to understand the concepts to see and avoid other aircraft to maintain a good margin of safety between all aircraft in the sky.