99% of mid-airs are avoided by the Big Sky theory and only 1% by the employment of MkI eyeball
I agree 100%
The number of times I have been flying along, with 3 passengers, got a "contact" from the radar operator, and none of us could spot it... In fact none of us managed to spot about 3/4 of them.
Personally, I keep my look-out to a narrow band at my height, paying little attention to stuff below me. I fly as high up as I can, airspace/weather permitting, and find most traffic is way below. If I was flying at say 1000ft AGL then I would have 10x more contacts to watch out for.
On the one hand we are taught to navigate visually which means watching the ground; on the other hand traffic that is kerb crawling isn't going to get you! Fortunately I am done with all my training now and will never again have to do dead reckoning
