Good Situational Awareness

[Mr Cessna]

What makes good situational awareness and what are your different ways to use it whilst flying? Is CRM useful for pilots that fly light aircraft and how can you ensure your situational awareness is top level before you fly?

:ok:

[Genghis the Engineer]

Wow Mr.C, I'm impressed with just how many questions you got into a one sentence post there!

Let's start at the end - preparing for good SA. I think that flight preparation is where much SA starts - a good OFP, well marked up chart, anything you may need in flight put immediately to hand, whether that's a protractor, sunglasses, approach plates...

Next is always thinking ahead of the aeroplane, or to put it another way, having a good picture all the time of where you are in your plan. Work to always be routinely cross-checking that you are where you think you are, and make the adjustments to get you back on your plan small and early.

Having done all that, lookout and cockpit checks are fairly obvious and fundamental. Slightly less so is getting any radio calls in as early as possible, and at the same time, monitoring everybody else's so that you are adding that into your mental picture of what everybody else is doing about you.

And a lot of this is good CRM, but so is for-example using your passengers to help with lookout, helping pass you things - or when flying solo, having a good well ordered cockpit with everything to hand, making use of ATC to reduce your workload (perhaps upgrading to a traffic service when flying through congested airspace or marginal visibility). So is making sure you are fit and up to the flight, considering your own fitness, did you get enough sleep last night? make sure you didn't drink much last night also? Have you recently reviewed the charts and POH to keep anything from catching you unawares? This is all CRM, and just as applicable to a solo flight as a big crew.

G

[Cows getting bigger]

Genghis mentions thinking ahead of the aircraft. Absolutely right.

I would take it a step further. If you are thinking ahead of the aircraft, you then develop the capacity to think outside the aircraft. To me, SA is about understanding the overarching environment, of which you and your aircraft are a small part. SA encompasses the ability to accurately and rapidly assess or even predict the outcome of your actions and those of others. It come with practice, experience, natural aptitude, attitude and mental capacity.

[SNS3Guppy]

What makes good situational awareness

Situational awareness is nothing more than knowing where you are, what you're doing, and what you can do. It's being aware of your relationship to terrain, the closest runway, your fuel status (how much fuel you've got left, or specifically, how much time you've got left), where your charts are, your health, the weather, other traffic and any other aspect that touches on, might impact, or relates to your flight.

One flies into a box canyon. One has plenty of fuel, good airspeed, a load of charts, and one is rested. One feels comfortable. One impacts the hillside. One is not situationally aware.

One overflies a viable runway enroute to a destination, but runs out of fuel before reaching the destination. Situational awareness would have been cognizant of the need to use that runway, of an impending low fuel situation, and of the implications of going too far.

One is going through a divorce, facing termination at work, eating nothing but candy bars and coffee, and working a second job. One undertakes a flight on the weekend at a busy field, in order to relax. Good situational awareness is taking stock of one's personal situation and knowing that with that much stress, the decks are already stacked before ever getting in the airplane. One is staring down a loaded gun. Don't do that.

Being situationally aware is looking at everything around you with a critical eye, and an honest one. Are you up for this flight? It's okay to say no, you're not. If you are, is the airplane? It's okay to find a problem that grounds it. Are your passengers nervous flyers? Do you really want to be looking for traffic while your passenger vomits all over the instrument panel because you elected to fly in the heat of the day, rather than in the morning? Situational awareness.

I hear three other airplanes on the radio. I see one on final. I see one joining the pattern, and there's another one just taking off. That's three. How do I know they're the same ones I hear on the radio, and more importantly, how do I know if there's other traffic operating around me that's not talking, or that I haven't heard? I don't. To maintain situational awareness of that traffic, I'm going to keep track of what I do see, look for what I don't like my life depends on it (it does), and keep scanning like a rubber-neck maniac. Situational awareness is an ongoing process.

If you're situationally aware, you become a part of your environment, rather than simply an observer of it.

what are your different ways to use it whilst flying?

Use it from the time you wake up and get ready to fly, to the time you tie the airplane down and walk away.

Not long ago an incident occurred during a landing in which an airplane I flew had a high temperature occur in the engine. In a turbine engine, that can be bad, so we went to the hotel for a few hours while a maintenance crew examined the engine from the inside, using special viewers called boroscopes. After determining that the engine appeared fine, we prepared for a takeoff the next morning, to go to a maintenance facility where a more thorough inspection could be performed.

Knowing that we had the high temp the previous day, we briefed and planned the takeoff with a failure of that engine, and possibly one other, in mind. That is, we had four engines, and we always plan on at least on at least one failure as a normal part of every takeoff briefing, but we discussed the potential for an engine failure, and then that engine, too. We had no problems on the takeoff, but situational awareness is being aware of what's going on and what could go on, given the information you have at hand, and planning accordingly. Situational Awareness, or SA, is taking into account all the information available to you in order to make the most informed decisions. Sometimes, the correct decision is simply to say no, we're not doing it.

SA can be as simple as knowing you have an early flight, and ensuring that you get a good night's rest in preparation for the flight. More can be done for safety in good preparation than can be done on the fly. In other words, it's far better to arrive in a situation prepared, than to hope you're good enough to handle whatever may arise. Some argue that it's better to be lucky than good or visa versa, but it's better to be prepared, than either one.

If you're approaching to land and have your aiming point squarely in your windscreen, not moving, looking steady a rock, then you're aware that you'l arrive at the aiming point if nothing changes. If you find the aiming point rising in your windscreen, you don't need to wait for the VASI or PAPI to change colors to let you know you're going low. You can add a little power, perhaps pitch up a little, and get your sight picture back where you wanted it. This is situational awareness. You're not waiting for a light to blink or change colors or a horn to go off to tell you something; you're monitoring what's happening closely, and correcting for it as you go. You're aware of the situation.

Is CRM useful for pilots that fly light aircraft

Yes, it is. Very much so.

A recent thread addressed this topic in detail.

http://www.pprune.org/private-flying/443786-single-pilot-crm.html

how can you ensure your situational awareness is top level before you fly?

A good policy is to be thorough in your preparations and your organization. There's nothing like taking off and realizing that the pitot tube cover is still on the pitot tube, or that your charts are in the back of the airplane, or that you didn't take on enough fuel.

I worked at a remote location where we had to hand-pump our fuel out of barrels. I flew a night mission, and during that mission used the fuel in my tip-tanks. I returned the airplane to the fuel pumps, per standard procedure, and was preparing to fuel, when my more experienced crew-mate suggested we head to the dining hall before it closed. Standard procedure, he said.

When I got back from eating, my airplane was gone. I found this suspicious, because I was responsible for it until it went back under cover, and no more flights were scheduled that night. Plus, all my gear was inside. I found the airplane, not where I left it, and a relatively disgruntled individual nearby who had taken it. He was in a big hurry to do a public relations thing at a nearby base. He departed in the other airplane, but had a problem after takeoff, and returned. Now in even more of a hurry, he grabbed my airplane and departed. Once in the air, he discovered that I hadn't fueled, and I'd flown a 6 hour mission. He tried to use the auxilliary fuel, but found it was gone. Frustrated, he returned and waited for me to get back, to have a go at me.

Can you count the number of errors in situational awareness that the other pilot displayed? A big part of situational awareness (and resource management) is knowing your options in advance, and planning for them. He didn't do a very through preflight of his own aircraft, and certainly didn't check mine before he left. He didn't try to leave earlier, which left him racing to catch up. When he did have a problem, about the only smart thing he did all evening was turn around and land. He took my airplane without checking the fuel. He didn't check the fuel in the main tanks, or the aux tanks. My gear was on the seat, and the airplane was chocked at the fuel farm, a clear indication that it wasn't mission-ready. It was still assigned to me. Lots of warning flags there, but he didn't use any situational awareness.

As it turned out, the last smart act of the day was recognizing his failure to be situationally aware and returning to land the second time. Trying to blame me after the fact only compounded his lack of awareness, and ultimately was one of several acts which lead to damaging his career.

I point this out not to poke at the individual in question, but as an illustration of what not to do; specifically,of someone who wasn't being situationally aware. You don't need to look far to find scores of mishap reports detailing failures to maintain SA. They're everywhere.

Show up rested and ready. Show up in the right frame of mind. You asked about being in top form, and you can't do that if you're preoccupied with other things.

A great mind who mentored me a long time ago once told me that the airplane must be more important to me than my politics, my family, my church, or anything else I might hold dear. At the time I took offense, and said that nothing came before my family and my beliefs. Then he put it in perspective by noting that if I didn't take the flight more seriously than all else, I might not survive to return to all else. If I get myself killed on a flight, I can't do much for my family. I can't go to church. I can't pay taxes. I can't feed the dog. I can't do anything, because I'm dead. Therefore, the flight becomes the most important thing in the world until the airplane is chocked and put away. I don't think about marriage, about bills, about anything else, when I'm engaged in a flight operation. It mandates all my focus.

How to be in top form to be situationally aware on any given day? Devote all your energies to the flight, and make it a priority. Mental preparedness is one of the single most important parts to staying ahead of the game. Emotional preparedness, too. Physical preparedness, in terms of your health, your rest, your diet (not a good time to get hypoglycemic on a flight, because you haven't been eating, for example). Physical preparedness in terms of your charts, your weight and balance, your performance calculations, your flight plan, your fuel order, your preflight, and so on. Informational preparedness in terms of weather, alternates (think about them even on a good, VFR day. Always have options). It's much easier to maintain good SA when you come prepared.

Fly safe.

[IO540]

By far the best tool for situational awareness is a GPS with a big screen (not 4") running the real VFR chart (not some Garmin/Jepp representation).

[Sir Niall Dementia]

Listen to ATC and build up a picture of where other traffic is in relation to you and whether it will be a factor, especially in the circuit, there have been a lot of mid-airs over the years in circuit patterns and at least one aircraft landing on top of another (Cranfield late '80's?) where one pilot strictly followed procedures and found another aircraft just where they didn't expect it.

And having re-read SNS3's post, there is an awful lot of good advice in there. I would add, fly defensively, expect the weather to be wrong and have a back up, expect someone to burst his tyres on the runway you are going to and have another in your plan, expect everyone else to not be thinking as you do so allow for them making the mistakes that your awareness will stop you from making.

SND

[SNS3Guppy]

By far the best tool for situational awareness is a GPS with a big screen (not 4") running the real VFR chart (not some Garmin/Jepp representation).

Moving maps are useful tools, but still a crutch. The best tool by far for situational awareness is between one's ears.

[Tarq57]

Situational awareness is not just about navigation.
Nor is it just about a traffic picture.
Nor is it just about weather.

It is about all those, and much more, including (but not limited to) the aircraft type and condition, and its abilities.
The pilots' condition and abilities on the day, in the aircraft concerned.
The airspace and terrain along and nearby the proposed flight area.
And even the state of mind/emotions of the other occupants of the aircraft.

With experience comes a sort of "what if?" thinking, which forms a background - but not obsessive - notional thinking that strongly suggests to the pilot (or controller, in my own case) that a plan "b" should be readily to hand for any given situation that is likely, or reasonably possible. For the likely ones, you should be able to cobble together a workable plan "c" at short notice, too. Which requires a certain awareness or perception about things that might not be so evident.

[FlyingForFun]

SNS3Guppy,

Your post (your first reply on this thread) is one of the best posts I've read on PPRuNe for a while. I might print it out to show to students if you don't mind!

FFF
------------

[Black Jake]

Quote:
By far the best tool for situational awareness is a GPS with a big screen (not 4") running the real VFR chart (not some Garmin/Jepp representation).

I would slightly amend this statement by changing, "by far the best tool" to "an extremely useful tool". As SNSG states, "the best tool is between one's ears".

Lots of other good stuff from Ghengis, Cows, Tarq etc.

BJ

[SNS3Guppy]

I might print it out to show to students if you don't mind!

No problem, but bear in mind that it's just one guy's observations.

[Sir Niall Dementia]

SNS3;

They may be one person's observations, but they basically add up to the much derided single pilot CRM in one posting.

Well Done

SND:D

[IO540]

Black Jake - I think you will find that anybody getting as far as starting up a web browser has already got a brain :)

Situational awareness, in flying, mostly means knowing where one is.

It is no use posting that one needs a brain also; that is just a waste or bandwidth.

And the best way to know where one is, laterally, is a moving map GPS.

The reason I bang on about this is because large chunks of the GA community still have not got that far and are fumbling and stumbling with their stopwatches and not doing what they originally learnt to fly for which is to enjoy flying.

There is a substantial body of individuals in GA who just keep banging on about how hard everything should be, how one should be tense, how one should expect the plane to blow up any second, etc. It's a good job they are not writing the regs. I wish this was Usenet because then I could stick them into a killfile and be done with them.

[Cows getting bigger]

IO540, I think you're missing a bit of the point.

[BackPacker]

I'm not quite sure if IO540 misses the point entirely.

As almost everybody here said, SA is being aware of all the factors in the environment around you, and in the plane, and have an awareness on how they're going to affect your flight.

Aviate, Navigate, Communicate is only the start in summing up what's involved.

Our brains unfortunately have limited processing power, get distracted easily, are not good at prioritizing under stress and so forth. And anytime we overload our brain, situational awareness suffers.

So if you can offload certain functions to something, or somebody else, the chances of brain overload become smaller and smaller, leaving you more time and capacity to deal with, for instance, interpreting radio calls of other aircraft. Or to think ahead about fuel status vs. alternates. Or do the 1000s of other little things that a flight requires.

Out of the Aviate, Navigate, Communicate mantra, navigation is the task that is arguably the most involved, and the task that is hardest to do on the mental autopilot. I mean, monitoring airspeed, bank angle and altitude, and listening to the radio until somebody calls out your callsign are things we can eventually do subconsciously, not? But looking for a specific landmark, timing a leg, fiddling with the knobs to tune a navaid and so forth is not something you can do subconsciously.

So by reducing the effort that navigation takes, your mental capacity to deal with other factors in the environment will increase. And that may greatly enhance your situational awareness. (Unless you apply that mental capacity to something else of course - making a phonecall, listening to music, conversing with passengers, taking pictures or even playing with the GPS.)

So, yes, in that respect a big and advanced GPS, with terrain alerts, weather radar and other bells and whistles can indeed greatly increase SA.

[Genghis the Engineer]

Nav kit plays a part - and the modern moving map GPS is a useful tool to help with that, but it does little to assist with knowing what everybody is doing, what the weather's doing (in the UK anyhow, some models will do that for you in the USA), how the aeroplane is chugging along, how the other people in the aeroplane are behaving, what the next altimeter pressure setting or radio frequency needs to be...

I use a moving map GPS for certain tasks (particularly flight testing where I want to free up a lot of mental capacity for other jobs, another is reliably finding small grass strips I've not been to before, a further is allowing me to manoeuvre around the edge of danger areas with small and thus timesaving margins) and it's very useful in assisting my SA. But as others have said it is just one of multiple inputs into the pilots trained brain (an untrained brain is of little use - doubt this?, try asking a passenger who hasn't flown before, 20 minutes into a flight, where you are and where any other aeroplane is). And it is in danger of encouraging over-reliance on a single data source, which is seldom healthy.


Anyhow, we couldn't have a thread with any navigational content on Private Flying without IO540 banging on about the superiority of GPS, and the utter redundancy of all other navigational methods - we'd all get suspicious and lonely without it.

G

[Malcom]

SA starts before you get in the damn airplane. Yet another set of cowlings & assorted panels blown off the racks & scattered in the hangar by a throttleknob jockey starting-up just outside the hangar testifies to that.

He has received the bill.

[IO540]

without IO540 banging on about the superiority of GPS,

which is true

and the utter redundancy of all other navigational methods

where did I say that?

What gets me is pontificating about what is basically (in CAA-speak) basic good airmanship or (in my speak) being a basically smart pilot.

"Single pilot CRM" :yuk:

Calling the getting of tafs and metars "situational awareness" or "single pilot CRM" is just perverse.

[Big Pistons Forever]

Situational awareness for light aircraft starts by looking out the window. Sounds facile but it is not, because to keep a good look out so you always know what attitude the aircraft is in, have the traffic spotted and know the land features you are seeing....you have to the aircraft in trim, navigation sorted and efficient engine management/checklist use.

When doing checkouts I find the overall competence of the pilot is heavily correlated to the head in vs head out time. Si if you are flying along and realize that it has been a while since you paid attention to what was happening in the windscreen that is a clue that you need to reestablish your SA right away.

[maxred]

I used to fly with a guy, brand new $750k, glass cockpit, full Avidyne, full the lot. Zero ability, zero SA. It was a truly remarkable experience 'flying'with him. Analysis showed that he was actually scared, not only of the machine, but the superb avionics, the experience.The aircraft is 3 years old, and has TT of 90 hrs.

He was obsessed with where he was, his 'situational awareness',as he used to preach to me, and used to sit with the maps on his knee, with more information in front of him than the average 747-400 driver.

He never knew where he was, despite the moving maps, the information overload. He also used to argue with me,in flight, that I paid little attention to where I was, never realising that at every momentt, every second, I knew exactly where I was, and of his limitations. We do not fly together anymore, after he panicked in heavy IMC, gave the craft to me, and I flew it on instruments, from the right seat, with all the 'glass dials'on his side. A sobering moment. Never happened again.

My point, even with the highest levels of GPS moving maps, autopilots, glass cockpits et al, UNLESS, as previously posted, excellently, in some cases, SN3GUPPY, SA, is all surrounding, all consuming. Every aspect of he flight.

[IO540]

Are you not exaggerating a little, BPF?

In VFR conditions, everybody is looking out of the window 99% of the time.

Maybe not seeing things you expect them to see, but that's another story.

The only way one can be looking inside the cockpit for any length of time, and not lose control, is if one is on autopilot and those are going to be pretty rare in the PPL training environment, which I assume is where you work.

I often read about people having their head in the cockpit but this never sounds very real - except in very modern hardware.

And a GPS, with its instant presentation of position and the provision of the projected course line, reduces the time spent reading instruments by a big margin :)

One could certainly write reams about basic airmanship, preflight activities, all kinds of stuff like that, and actually I have written reams and reams on that elsewhere as you probably know, but I wouldn't give it fancy names.

If some bloke flies a plane into a mountain, on a VFR flight which was in solid IMC for hundreds of miles, killing himself and his family in a thunderstorm, with nonworking deice boots which he couldn't care less about, presumably flying VFR to avoid Eurocontrol route charges, without evidently having even looked at tafs metars or any other kind of wx data.... would you say his "single pilot CRM" was less than exemplary?

Maxred - what you describe is not as unusual as it ought to be, but it is a very different issue from "single pilot CRM" or whatever. It is the result of being able to buy any plane and, within one's class or type rating, fly it away, with no mandatory ground school, and with most instructors having no clue either what the knobs do.

When I bought my TB20 in 2002, I never found an instructor who knew what the HSI did. I had to work it all out myself.

This is less common in the USA where insurers mandate type specific training (at this level of hardware, anyway).

There should be some pretty mandatory ground school on modern aircraft systems but we need to be careful what we wish for in this already grotesquely over-regulated activity. The CAAs are hardly in a position to do anything; they are firmly still in the "KNS80= state of the art" era.

[maxred]

I used to fly with a guy, brand new $750k, glass cockpit, full Avidyne, full the lot. Zero ability, zero SA. It was a truly remarkable experience 'flying'with him. Analysis showed that he was actually scared, not only of the machine, but the superb avionics, the experience.The aircraft is 3 years old, and has TT of 90 hrs.

He was obsessed with where he was, his 'situational awareness',as he used to preach to me, and used to sit with the maps on his knee, with more information in front of him than the average 747-400 driver.

He never knew where he was, despite the moving maps, the information overload. He also used to argue with me,in flight, that I paid little attention to where I was, never realising that at every momentt, every second, I knew exactly where I was, and of his limitations. We do not fly together anymore, after he panicked in heavy IMC, gave the craft to me, and I flew it on instruments, from the right seat, with all the 'glass dials'on his side. A sobering moment. Never happened again.

My point, even with the highest levels of GPS moving maps, autopilots, glass cockpits et al, UNLESS, as previously posted, excellently, in some cases, SN3GUPPY, SA, is all surrounding, all consuming. Every aspect of the flight.

[Black Jake]

Re: single pilot CRM. If I was clever enough I'd write stuff like this. But I'm not, so I'll leave that to the folk at NASA Ames and just try to learn from it.

http://flightsafety.org/asw/nov07/asw_nov07_p30-34.pdf

BJ

[Big Pistons Forever]

Are you not exaggerating a little, BPF?
.

Sadly no.......

[AfricanEagle]

Many good posts.

Basically SA is good ground preparation and thinking ahead:


where am I and what am I doing (phase of flight, next phase of flight)
what is happening around me (weather, radio/traffic, aircraft conditions)
where am I going and how am I going to get there (weather, navigation, airspace, radio/traffic, fuel)
what do I do if things change (plan A, B, C - weather, closed runway, aircraft problems)


At that point one uses the tools available to reduce workload (ADF, VOR, GPS, moving maps, etc).

[Morrisman1]

Im a believer that the best VFR flying is the simple stuff, need nothing more than a compass and DI as navigation assistance, flying to a flight plan and using a map. Discipline to maintain a flight log is very important to S.A. as it forces us into it, without keeping the flight log it would be easy for many pilots to drift off into La-La land.

In my opinion the glass cockpit is fantastic for IFR but makes matters worse for VFR due to it being completely unnecessary and just a distraction.

Out of the fleet I've flown, my favourite is the pa28-181 which is just a basic VFR machine with no fancy gizmos or unnecessary technology. Its fantastic to fly but for IFR flight I love having a GNS530 at my disposal, it definitely increases S.A. and having it supplement radio navigation is most reassuring.

Of course what helps with S.A. will vary from pilot to pilot but the concept is simple - if you are meant to be looking out the window that will give you best S.A. but if you are meant to be looking at the dials, better dials will allow for better S.A.

[Sciolistes]

I totally agree with what most say here, that in order to develop good SA you have to have a quality picture of your environment, position, flightpath and aircraft status. No question.

I don't believe that the story of SA ends with just acquiring it, by doing so you're no longer simply reacting to events but predicting them. The highest level of SA has you not just predicting events but doing something about them too, mitigating the possible negative effects, developing alternative plans and remaining flexible.

With regards to that old chestnut, the GPS. Predictably I disagree that GPS = SA. Competence + GPS ~= SA as Competence + Traditional Navigation ~= SA.

BA did a study a decade ago on glass systems. They concluded that SA was no higher with crew operating EFIS aircraft compared to crew operating conventional instruments. Having gain a considerable number of hours since my last reading, I decided to recently re-read the report. As a result it does somewhat concur with my own experience. To quote a bit of it:
Firstly, rushed approaches were occurring as frequently in Glass and Steam fleets despite the extra information on display in the Glass cockpit. Secondly, significantly more hard GPWS warnings were occurring on the Glass fleets and, finally, whilst more navigation errors were occurring on the ‘Steam’ fleets these were mostly recognised and corrected immediately whereas more consequential navigation errors were occurring on the Glass fleets. On inspection the HFR database supported their concerns. Using the ‘percentage positive’ calculation for each of the three SA factors and comparing across the combined Glass and combined Steam fleets gave a very clear indication that Flight Operations were right to be concerned.

Obviously it isn't entirely relevant to GA, but some of the insights should prove interesting. Report here (http://www.eurocontrol.int/humanfactors/gallery/content/public/docs/Pragueworkshop/Incident%20Reporting%20with%20British%20Airways%20-%20Mike%20O'Leary%20(working%20paper%20+%20cv).pdf).

I fear that the training issue is another discussion!

[24Carrot]

Helping other people's situational awareness is also important, eg making radio calls in the circuit, squawking Mode C if you have it, talking to LARS, etc.

[IO540]

BA did a study a decade ago on glass systems. They concluded that SA was no higher with crew operating EFIS aircraft compared to crew operating conventional instruments.

That's probably because airliners had EFIS data presentation many years before they had anything one could call a moving map.

Another thing is that a typical airliner (especially one flying a typical BA type of route) has little need for lateral SA because it spends most of its time at ~FL350 and is under tight radar control at the two ends. Anybody who flies IFR in CAS will know how this works. ATC keep you on a very short leash indeed.

This is why airline travel has historically been very safe (in the last few decades, anyway) despite the average 747 jockey knowing his lateral position to no better accuracy than a few miles, until established on the localiser :)

GA IFR is very different, with very different risks, and the pilot needs to be much more on the ball.

[Genghis the Engineer]

Many military and transport aeroplanes were fitting INS based moving maps, using microfilmed charts, in the 1970s.

I agree that GA SA is a different beast to transport SA mind you, we are much less constrained to specific routes, and more to the point, neither are the other aircraft around us.

G

[Sciolistes]

IO540, you would be surprised as to how narrow a view of CAT you have limited yourself to :) There is no point trying set you straight as that is besides the point, suffice to say that airline ops cover a broad range of operational challenges that most GA pilots would be unlikely to be subjected to.

Therefore the notion and elements of SA are identical for CAT as they are for
GA. What is different between the two is the the specific operation of the aircraft and the potential immediate ramifications of lack of SA and probable subsequent error. For example miscalculating track miles to run could be significant for a medium jet, but probably not for a piston prop. Icing would be significant for a piston prop but probably not for a medium jet.

On the whole though, I would surmise that the potential SA traps and pitfalls would be similar between the two camps.

[IO540]

Feel free to set me straight, Sciolistes :)

There is an overlap between piston GA and jet ops, but it is quite small. I'd say that a piston aircraft going into some VFR airport in Switzerland would face the same issues as a bizjet going there. Both cancel IFR some way out. An IFR example might be the piston aircraft going IFR into such an airport (e.g. Lugano LSZL) which again will be similar to the bizjet case (no big-jet airline will be going there; 6.65 degree ILS).

But one cannot compare the general need for SA between a VFR/IFR-OCAS piston operation, and an airliner. The latter flies in CAS (or is under a radar advisory service for those that do bits in Class G) whereas the former has to look after himself, and his biggest challenge is not busting CAS.

I don't suppose I disagree with you all that much but I do think that making very general statements is not educating GA pilots very much.

[chrisN]

By common consent, above, SA includes awareness of other traffic to a greater or lesser extent. I think many of us delude ourselves about just how much, or little, we know of it.

The Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) referred to scan problems in its report on the Cirrus/Grob Tutor collision (2 fatalities in the Grob) in 2009.

‘1.18.11 See-and-avoid

Various studies have highlighted the limitations of the see-and-avoid method of preventing mid-air collisions. .

‘1.18.12 Alerted see-and-avoid

‘ . . . tests determined that one second of alerted visual search is as effective as eight seconds of unalerted search . .’

The report is available to download from:

Air Accidents Investigation: 5/2010 G-BYXR and G-CKHT (http://www.aaib.gov.uk/publications/formal_reports/5_2010_g_byxr_and_g_ckht.cfm) :

An article by a CAA man included: “. . . the visual scan is the ONLY way to spot likely collision hazards”. It’s official, so it must be right. But the same article made clear that visual scan has many limitations.

(A visual search in the absence of traffic information is less likely to be successful than a search where traffic information is provided because, obviously, knowing where to look greatly increases the chances of sighting the other aircraft. Various field trials have shown that in the absence of a traffic alert, the probability of a pilot sighting a threat is generally low until a short time before impact. Traffic alerts were found to increase search effectiveness by a factor of eight (in relation to the ‘alerted’ threat only).

Just how good is the standard unalerted lookout?

To quote from the AAIB report again:

‘Lookout to the front and scan above and below the horizon, then attitude and instruments…. Move the eyes around the horizon in a series of steps (normally to the right initially), scanning up then down at each point…..continue the scan back to the tailplane and then look above and behind over the top and back to the front.’

The AAIB report continued to observe, and quote references to the effect, that a traffic scan takes time – at least one second at each fixation, so from 54 seconds upwards. A study they referred to included these cumulative time periods, in seconds, to react to an observed collision threat:

See object 0.1
Recognise aircraft 1.1
Recognise collision 6.1
Decide on action 10.1
Muscle reaction 10.5
Aircraft lag time 12.1 secs

Is even 54 seconds per complete scan good enough to detect in time a closing threat from, say, your 8 o’clock (only one such glance per 54 seconds, at best)?

Chris N

[Sciolistes]

But one cannot compare the general need for SA between a VFR/IFR-OCAS piston operation, and an airliner. The latter flies in CAS (or is under a radar advisory service for those that do bits in Class G) whereas the former has to look after himself, and his biggest challenge is not busting CAS.
I agree with your specific example, but the pillars (as many have described here) of good SA don't change for either case.

I don't suppose I disagree with you all that much but I do think that making very general statements is not educating GA pilots very much.
As already mentioned, SA is a general concept. Bar the basics like MSA, etc, I don't think it is right to say that good SA means doing specific things at a specific time in a specific way. I know Pilots who try and run the show like a script and sometimes loose the big picture as a direct result.

A nice adage to hang your hat on is "plane, path, people" (people - traffic, atc, pax, anybody). Ask yourself that any time something unusual happens and you can't go far wrong.

[Fuji Abound]

Well I am going to disagree with SNS3 (as we have before).

His mantra appears to be don’t fly unless you are in a perfect state of mind.

I live in the real world.

I fly for business and pleasure. I know that meetings don’t always go well. I know sometimes my concentration is not as focused. I know sometimes I have had a hard week. Far better to accept reality and learn to recognise the signs, set your own limits, and work out what you need to do to perform as well as you can.

There is no substitute for a methodical approach. There are certain things I find I always do. I always take a look at the NOTAMs, I always brief the weather, I always review the route, what frequencies I need, what plates etc.

So for me the next sober moment is when I sit in the cockpit. I run through whether I have correctly completed the pre-flight and have everything I need for the flight itself. If I find I have missed an element it is a warning that something has got in the way; it is a good time to ask why and what I need to do to rectify matters. Sometimes it is the first sign that my mind was else where so I know I need to concentrate that little bit more.

I always tell myself more accidents happen on the ground than any where else. I have been close to a few myself! Too may pilot’s minds are elsewhere when they release the brakes or after they land. It is another good routine to remind myself not too rush and make sure I have assessed any hazards.

It is always interesting to watch other pilots when they take off. There are those with their eyes on the instruments, those with eyes on the instruments and looking forward and those with eyes also swivelling left, right and above. It is a good indicator to yourself whether you are immersed in flying or elsewhere; I know if I am too focused on the instruments or whats up front, I am going to need to concentrate that little bit extra for the rest of the flight.

So for me all of the afore are ways of catching any lack of preparation and far more importantly self assessing whether I am being too sloppy. If I have missed a few things and had to go back and redo them I know I should work doubly as hard during the en route sector to make sure I have briefed each phase of the flight.

IO540 is right on the money with regards to the advantage of a large moving map. It is just such complete nonsense to argue it is a crutch. Of course it is not a lot of good if you don’t understand the system and are working over time to press buttons. It is just the same if you struggle to keep up with an extra engine in a twin, but equally ridiculous to suggest that a second, third or fourth engine isn’t a good thing. In short use what you have, but make sure you know how to use it.

For me the in-flight segment is about two things – what is happening now, and what is going to happen next. We all know there are a host of elements to manage including briefing for the arrival, airspace, traffic, engine management etc.

It is vital not to become too focused on any one element. Whenever my head is working the cockpit I try and remain conscious of whether too much time has crept by since I last looked up – force yourself to look out so you don’t become distracted. Don’t just pay attention to the RT affecting your own call sign but listen to the general chatter – it is a super way of developing a mental picture of traffic and other issues. Ask yourself why a pilot is making a particular request – often it can give good clues about the weather or the landing conditions.

I am not going to bore the pants off you but there is of course a whole host of things you might want to do particularly during a busy IFR flight; doubtless the subject of another thread.

So having caught up on the thread drift will writing, SA has everything to do at one level with following a script – a good script will give you plenty of indicators that you are getting sloppy and focusing too hard or too long on a single element, but it also has everything to do with a developing a feel for the big picture which only really comes with experience and flying with those that can and do!

Finally to return to the never ending thread of glass versus conventional I can only imagine the detractors have never used glass. For me everything I need is on one screen, be it the airport plate, the traffic, the weather, the approach plate with the whole lot overlaid in real time. Yes of course you can put that together by cross referencing various other sources but if you really believe that to be a more effective way of achieving the same goal then I think your understanding of human factors is at best very limited.

[thing]

'Many military and transport aeroplanes were fitting INS based moving maps, using microfilmed charts, in the 1970s.



But they used to land with large errors a lot of the time, I know, I used to fix 'em.

Whilst on the whole I'm all for making pilot workload easier; just because something is all shiny and glassy and says Garmin on it, it only displays what is fed into it, if it gets crap in, you get crap out. It's just hi tec crap and the danger is that folk who aren't very techy minded will assume that it 'has to be right because it's shiny' rather than wondering why low tech map (which is never wrong) and hi tech gizmo don't match. Just my two pennorth.

[Pace]

Always love Guppies posts too ;)

For me situational awareness is more than just planning its a mind thing which you are either blessed with or not.

One of the best indicators of situational awareness is when the plans go out of the window and you have the sort of mind which can work on the hoof.
Its about being able to pick up your game with situations and to stay ahead of the game.

Its about being able to handle multi tasking and loading and yet still be aware of details which crop up unexpectedly.

Some have to work harder at developing situational awareness others its natural.

Planning etc is about protecting yourself from the biggest killer "overload"!
Situational awareness is something else.

Pace

[Crash one]

I think, for what it's worth, that Guppy & Pace are about as right as it is going to get.
SA is not just about knowing in 3D where you are, it is about being aware of everything around that could affect you in any way. Frinstance, We have just bought a pup, (young dog) situational awareness involves, where is he? Are all the doors shut? Where's the cat? Does he look like he wants a pee, or worse? The dog that is! etc. Flying SA involves eveything from. Have I got enough fuel for this trip? Is the a/c serviceable? Is the correct tank selected? Where is everyone else in the sky, & where are they going relative to me? I know I have right of way but has he seen me & what is he going to do if he hasn't? How far & what direction is the nearest alternate? what was ATC saying? Were they talking to me? Is my pax ok? Where are we exactly? When is sunset? etc. GPS is only a tool to help with one question. Planning just reduces the number of un-answered questions.

[PEI_3721]

See ‘http:// aviation dot org’ library section. A series of presentations on thinking, awareness, and decision making.
(fill in the dot in the web address)

[Fuji Abound]

GPS is only a tool to help with one question.


Not really - these days GPS effectively answers a host of questions;

How far is it to the alternate,
What other airfields are within range and how do I get to them,
What is the next and the next frequency,
What does the plate for the airfield look like,
Where is the traffic that just called,
What is the weather doing ahead,
What is the wind doing,
What is the outside temperature,
What is my ground speed and airspeed,
What do I need to do regarding controlled airspace,
Where are the danger areas.

I could go on. It is all there for you on current glass displays, if not exactly a simple GPS.

I cant do half of that in real time in my brain so I am glad to have the technology on my side.

[rotorfossil]

True situational awareness is almost unteachable (although guidance can be given as to the aims) because it depends on the amount of spare processing power left after the requirements of flying the bird, and therefore also depends a lot on ones familiarity with the aircraft you are flying.
It is interesting in this context that in combat, the vast majority of kills in WW2 were achieved by a very small number of pilots possibly helped by their ability to keep track of a complex situation (and shoot straight).
In nearly 50 years of instruction in and out of the military, I have flown with a only a few people who were really the tops in SA. It was an awesome experience and almost completely independent of piloting skill.

[Fuji Abound]

I am not so sure that it cant be taught - at least to a degree.

It is like so many things in life a big element is learning how to effectively manage your time and how to prioritise. Most of the time the plot falls apart because you become overloaded and in most cases you become overloaded because of lack of planning and or lack of methodolgy to tackle the unfolding events.

In a simple case such as an engine failure because it can take us by surprise and can cause immediate panic PPL training focuses on teaching the pilot to fall back on a rehearsed drill. Part of the drill comprises prioritising, identifying and maintaining visual contact with the proposed landing site, thereby maintaining some SA as events unfold.

In just the same way getting into the habit of rehearsing the route, the alternates, the approach and during the flight developing the habit of challenging yourself to ask where am I, what is around me, in what way, if any has my plan changed etc., goes a very long way to avoiding any nasty surprises and in so doing even the less experienced pilots will do a much better job of SA.

Yes of course it comes with experience, but you learn one hell of a lot by having the old hat sitting next to you putting to you the usual questions - so have you self briefed for the approach, what are you going to do if the active changes, suppose you dont like the look of those clouds in the distance when we get a little nearer, where you going to go, what you going to do, etc.

[Maoraigh1]

Anyone who is paranoid has good situational awareness.:E

[Pace]

I would go further and say that pilots withgood situational awareness have dominant visual brains. I knew one who could operate totally without a checklist and very quickly by purely darting his fingers around the panel to the right switches in the right order! Tell him to recite the checklist and he hadn't a clue.
I see the brain as a computer one part on board memory the other the graphics card.
The guy lucky enough to have a powerful graphics card with tons of on board memory can deal with a lot of visual information.
The guy with a poor card with low on board me memory has ro rely on the main computer memory to back up his graphics card otherwise he quickly freezes up or stutters.
You cannot be taught situational awareness you can put more information in the main memory banks.
I also knew another pilot who was detailed to the extreme . He planned every tiny detail and was an excellent pilot till one day his destination went down as did his alternatives and he no longer had his plans.
The poor guy could not cope survived but gave up flying as the experience scared him silly.

Pace

[Fuji Abound]

You cannot be taught situational awareness you can put more information in the main memory banks.



I disagree. You can teach anyone, anything what you cant teach is for them to excel. You can teach a pilot how to improve his SA awareness enormously, and usually because they have never been shown before.


I also knew another pilot who was detailed to the extreme. He planned every tiny detail and was an excellent pilot till one day his destination went down as did his alternatives and he no longer had his plans.



Actually nearly everything we do is based on past experience. It is experience that helps us to think outside the box. This pilot was in no different a situation but had clearly never been challenged as to what he would do when his alternate went down as well. If he were an instrument pilot then the training let him down badly, if he was not, then the training still left a great deal to be desired.

Actually I think for most pilots, including myself, the problems really start when you encounter a new problem followed by another event or event(s) that come quickly or the first problem does not respond in the way we think it should. For example I had an over temp on an engine, found myself in two minds whether or not to shut it down because I had never seen the problem before and the POH conflicted with my natural reaction, and then I found I couldnt adequately trim out the asymetry, so I ended up working two unexpected issues whilst managing to lose some SA.

[Pace]

Fuji

With the best will in the world you cannot teach people to do anything. You can improve but not teach.
A running instructor might improve the time I can run a mile but I would never do it in under 4 minutes :) or anything even vaguely approaching 4 minutes.

CTC profile potential pilots to have the right attributes to a high degree.

Even with that one I know of got through the net and after all his training failed at the last hurdle even though he was given extra training to catch up with the others and these were all pilots screeened to have the correct attributes.

Take the mixed bag of the PPL world and I cannot agree we can all be trained to a set level especially when it comes to situational awareness anymore than I could be trained to run a 4 minute mile or get pole position in a formula 1 car :)

Pace

[Fuji Abound]

Pace - well if you read my last post we essentially agree because I took care to say you can teach anyone, anything, but you cant teach them to excel. If you say so I couldnt teach you to run a sub four min. mile any more than I could teach my 93 year old Dad, but I could teach you how to reduce your mile time by a surprising amount.

In terms of pilots there are those that will always struggle but with good teaching you can get a lot more out of anyone willing. The problem with most GA pilots is they have had very little teaching after they qualify and the teaching they had pre-PPL while adequate for the task is inadequate for them to spread their wings; that is why the fortunate few fall into the hands of a good mentor,while most give up, or without knowing it resign themselves to being always a far less able pilot than they might.

It is for those reasons that I believe you can teach most pilots techniques that will help them improve their situational awareness enormously - they will probably never be as good as you, given the hours you have accumulated and your wealth of experience, but they will be much better than they were. Some will find it harder than others to see the plot and a few may never get it, but given time everyone will do better.

[Black Jake]

Pace,
I think your last post is somewhat contradictory. The question is whether you can teach SA as a skill, which you seem to deny is possible. Firstly you say that you can't teach people to do anything, merely improve. Which implies that everyone who starts flying training may or may not be endowed with a thing called SA. If you have it, an instructor might be able to improve it. If not - tough. You can't improve what isn't there. Kind of like the "right stuff".

But you finish by questioning whether anyone can be trained to a certain standard e.g. running a mile in 4 minutes or achieving pole in a formula 1 car.
This is different. Taking the latter - yes you can teach someone who has never driven before how to drive a formula 1 car. Whether they will be able to get round a lap in one piece in anything near 1 minute 23 seconds (the standard) is another matter. Even with The Stig for an instructor!

So back to SA. As pilots we all like to think that we have "good SA". Well I'm quite happy to admit that when I started flying I had none. Zilch. My sole focus of attention was in controlling the beast. Over time and with good instruction, practice and above all experience I'd like to think that my SA has improved. True, not everyone can be trained to a "set level" of SA (whatever that is), but the basic techniques for keeping track of events outside the cockpit can be taught e.g. "stop talking for a second and listen to that other guy on the radio, where is he, what is he doing, how will that affect you?" or, "we took off on R/W 27 into a strong headwind, is it really appropriate to be doing a forced landing into a field heading east?"

BJ

[Fuji Abound]

Black Jake - yes, I believe you have it - and there are two ways to improve at anything - the slow way, self taught, and by experience, and the fast track, with a good mentor who is able to pass on their experience to you.

In my view the problem with private flying is that it is one of the worst examples of creating an enviroment in which people share their experience. In sport people join clubs, train together, compete together and by its nature are often anxious to perform better, in business it is very much in the owner's interest to mentor emplyees, but with flying it can end up being a pretty lonely experience.

[Black Jake]

Just one more thought before I go to bed. Rotorfossil made a point about a small number of pilots making most of the kills in WW2, presumably due to some inbuilt SA in their psyche.

Anyone seen Top Gun?

The whole point of the US Naval Fighter Weapons School (TopGun) and the European equivalent, the Tactical Leadership Programme, is to train fighter pilots how to survive (and preferably win) their first few engagements in air combat. The school was set up following hard won experience in Vietnam which demonstrated that superior technology didn't necessarily equate to superior kill ratios. Is there any parallel here with the recent NTSB report that concludes that glass panel flight displays don't necessarily equate to improves flight safety?

http://www.avweb.com/pdf/ntsb_glass-cockpit-lsa_report.pdf

The USN and European NATO air forces could be wrong, but they seem to think that one can train and develop "good SA" in their fighter pilots.

BJ

[Pace]

We all know the phrase 'fly within our limitations'!
Most accidents are caused by pilot error Ie getting into a situation that they cannot handle.
Obviously training and experience play a major parr in how we handle a situation.
There are pilots who make excellent VFR pilots but are uncomfortable in IMC and those who are as comfortable in IMC as they are in VMC.
We know that in instrument training there are naturals who instinctively scan and have a natural ability to handle other areas like aircraft operation, radio operation and navigation while others struggle more.
People can be tested on their reactions , balance. Ability to take in visual information etc and we are not the same.
Put 50 pilots in a sim 50 IR pilots trained to the same level and start loading them with problems.
We all have an overload point but I can assure you that that point will be different in those pilots.
Yes training and experience is vital but they are not the only ingredients in situational awareness.
Ability and makeup also plays a major part they do in being able to drive a formula one car at competitive times.

Pace

[Sir Niall Dementia]

Black Jake;

That report may have something. I spend a lot of time flying with pilots of widely varying degrees of experience (low time ppls at the flying club-multi thouand hour ATPLs at work). I always notice that those pilots who come from a relatively "low tech" background have the best SA.

One real stand out point is that SA appears to improve with experience, and is at its best in the two crew environment. The two crew environment is fairly obvious, 2 brains not working to their full capacity and questioning the decision making of each other. As for experience, that is just what it is. You learn a lesson, you don't forget it, next time a situation arises the old lessons are applied and modified as needed.

Some of the best situational awareness I have ever seen is in low level police and EMS helicopter pilots, they tend to be very experienced and call on all their own knowledge as well as that of the observers/medics as they need it.

I'm not sure if SA can be taught other than in a very basic form. The pilot must then take the basic tools and develop it for himself using every tool he can, be that the list from SNS3, reading about bad situations, or just listening to the sheepish confession of a friend who has just c***ed up over a beer in the flying club bar.

[Fuji Abound]

be that the list from SNS3


Which list was that?

[Conventional Gear]

Fuji, your situational awareness of this thread appears lacking, post #4? OK I'll concede it is not actually a 'list' but very informative and some food for thought for the planning of my next flight. It could easily be made into a 'list' for reference before take off.

My SA was awful throughout the PPL, it's improving exponentially with the ability to fly the plane instinctively and free up mental capacity for other things. I would certainly say my instructor was teaching me it all along, but am only now able to apply it. Also plenty of 'I wouldn't do that again' experiences.

A shorter list for SA might be

Airspeed

Altitude

Brains

and remembering that one requires at least two at all times during a flight to get home. (The old ones are the best ones) :)

Key issue, are all pilots aware of their awareness? If one can be honest enough to know it is not all that great at least it is a start to improving it. Some mental capacity put into every subsequent flight to improve SA will no doubt lead to the whole thing becoming more natural. My next flight is a short nav revision after a long break, I'll see just how much of what SNS3 has said I can include into it.

[hhobbit]

a vote of thanks to many contributors to this thread from a low hours pilot. Pprune keeps me regular:)

[Fuji Abound]

Situational awareness is nothing more than knowing where you are, what you're doing, and what you can do. It's being aware of your relationship to terrain, the closest runway, your fuel status (how much fuel you've got left, or specifically, how much time you've got left), where your charts are, your health, the weather, other traffic and any other aspect that touches on, might impact, or relates to your flight.




A shorter list for SA might be

Airspeed

Altitude

Brains



Well at least yours is more of a list that Guppies platitudes. I am guessing most of us would find Mr Guppies elements somewhat obvious, but in themselves the elements are not very useful.

Far more useful is how to go about ensuring you are situationally aware - and so my point was as interesting as this thread is there is very little to take from the thread as to HOW you go about it.

I gave an indication in my earlier post as to how I approach this issue - it is far from exhaustive but I hope it helps.

Maybe this thread is a good example of why many think it is difficult to teach.

[Conventional Gear]

Obvious perhaps, but as a rusty PPL it's helpful to me. SNS3's 'list' looks something like:


Situational awareness during any stage of a flight may be summarised as:


1. Knowing

· Where you are
· What you are doing
· Where you are going to be (always think ahead of the aircraft)
· What you can do
· Where others are and what they are likely to do


2. Being aware of


· Relationship to terrain (remember if on QNH altitude is above sea level not height above the ground below you)
· Closest runway (radio failure, mechanical problem, medical emergency)
· Off-field landing area (engine failure, precautionary landing)
· Fuel status (how much fuel – most importantly how much TIME is left)
· Chart/Checklist location
· Your health
· The weather
· Other traffic
· Help available – (ATC frequencies & available services)
· Navigation aids – (VOR/DME/ADF frequencies, know how to use GPS)
· Any other factor that might impact on your flight (Controlled airspace)


Situational awareness during the flight may be enhanced by ground preparation:


3. Ground Preparation

· Weather (Plan alternate aerodromes)
· NOTAMS
· Weight & Balance
· Fuel Calculations
· Performance Calculations
· Flight Plan/PLOG
· Actual fuel state of aircraft
· Aircraft condition (Is it fit for flight?)
· Pilot condition (Are you fit for flight?)


As for platitudes - since gaining my PPL I've flown with several PPLs with many more hundreds of hours in their log books than I. Some of whom might benefit from reading the list. (and a couple of hours with an instructor)

I added a couple of notes/additions. Yes it's all basic and I would agree it doesn't address how it might be taught whilst your posts usefully discuss that issue.

At least for me the 'list' is worthing printing off and putting in my flight bag for reference. It really did make me rethink a few things for my next flight and gives me a quick reference for stuff I was half wondering if I had forgotten.

My earlier joke regarding your SA of the thread was simply that a 'list' did exist within SNS3's post :ok:

At the very least the above will give me some starting points regarding improving my own SA.

[Fuji Abound]

1. Knowing

· Where you are
· What you are doing
· Where you are going to be (always think ahead of the aircraft)
· What you can do
· Where others are and what they are likely to do




but with respect you miss the point. Your list, as Mr Guppy's is obvious, although I agree not to everyone. Ask any pilot about SA and my guess is they will tell you, you need to know where you are, where you are going and what your alternates are (to paraphrase). The theory is great - and sound.

However now tell us how you achieve those objectives - that is what most pilot's need to know.

Let me give you an analogy - you could argue to get a good job, you need to present well, produce a solid CV, put over the reasons why you are suitable for the job convincingly at interview etc, that much most candidates with any hope know, the problem is most dont know how to do it!

Hence my point Mr Guppy told us what you need to do, as, with respect have you, not how you do it!

[Conventional Gear]

I appreciate your point, but if there is a basic agreement the elements are all there, then:

Where you are - OK I was taught PLOG/map/stopwatch during the PPL for VFR flight. It has to date never let me down. Not withstanding I also carry a moving map GPS and a backup GPS. I've never found navigating by map in the least bit difficult on VFR pleasure flights. Do the calculations, fly the heading, check the time. If it did go very wrong I would be outside my comfort zone, hence why I have a moving map GPS running in the cockpit too with the route loaded. I also do most of my VFR flights on a sim with photoscenery. Helps me know what to expect on the actual flight. If it's still not working VOR/VOR VOR/DME cuts, still no good? - call ATC and say I AM LOST! There really is not a lot of excuse for not knowing where one is.

I would argue that is better SA than pilot X I fly with who never plans a flight or talks to ATC and wanders around in circles saying how much fun it is to just go 'visit' places and always argues regarding visual ground references. (all the time I know where I am because I have the map and GPS - I only get assertive when I know we will bust airspace and otherwise just let pilot X get on with 'teaching' their far superior navigation techniques)


What you are doing - well it doesn't hurt to remind oneself what stage of a flight one is in. FREDA checks etc, changing course, joining a traffic pattern.

Where are you going to be - PLOG/map/time and or moving map GPS

What you can do - this is one that made me rethink, I checked all local airfields and found two not marked on my CAA map, a farm strip and a small private aerodrome. Could be plenty more to add to the list, VOR radials, NDB frequency to nearest airfield for each leg etc.

What others are doing - listen into at least, preferably get a service from ATC - look out of the cockpit. OK we know there are limitations but not doing those things doesn't improve the situation. Knowing where to look when given traffic information or hearing calls took me time, I'm still working on it, but I learnt pretty quickly if I didn't see it, it's because it is somewhere else, so look around. Still can't see it? Is it time to act and change altitude or heading?

I think from the basic list each point can be expanded in this way, from the above there could be further expansions and discussion.

In the end it all comes back to that one word Airmanship at the end of the day, good pilot SA is one of the requirements of good Airmanship. In my experience SA is like landing, it's hard for instructors to teach. They can say the right things but does it 'click' but perhaps with persistence an instructor can pass on the right attitude for future learning and as pilots we can question our SA rather than believing we know it all.

[Fuji Abound]

Understandably, you have mentioned all the basic elements taught during the PPL.

You seem comfortable following a preordained plan. Perhaps you wouldn’t be as comfortable were the plan to change. In fact your friend unwittingly may have given you some good advice.

You will find one of the best ways of improving your SA is to place yourself outside of your comfort zone. I have flown with pilots that have planned to the Nth degree – they think they have everything covered and then the runway changes, they find themselves flying the missed and it all falls apart.

So choose three airports – have a look at the met and the wide area NOTAMs but don’t think too much about which runway you will be using just ensure crosswinds limits will not be an issue on the day and set off. Work it out on the hoof so to speak and see how it goes. You may find you learn a great deal and your SA improves significantly as a consequence – not on that flight, but on subsequent flights.

Next time you fly think of a time mid flight – it could be 11.10 for example. When 11.10 comes you have had an engine failure or a temp warning as you prefer. I bet you miss the time and I bet you find the experience interesting.

Next time you pass over an airfield on route somewhere give them a call on the spur and ask if they will accept you for a coffee. It will improve your SA.

In each of these scenarios think about the process you will go through when the “event” occurs. Just by planning for these events you will find your ability to cope with genuine diversions and even pre-planned routes improves immeasurably and with it you’re general SAs.

If you are serious about your flying any pilot should get to the stage where he can sit in the cockpit, decide on a destination a few hundred miles away in the UK, and assuming VMC, he can plan the route and be airbourne in less than 15 minutes. It may be hard work but next time your SA is challenge in earnest youw ill be amazed how much more spare brain capacity you have because you have been there and done it before.

In short these are all techniques that help you to get use to planning on the hoof - it is when the plans go out the window that you will find so does your SA unless you know how to go about it - another subject in itself!

[Pace]

Or better still take yourself off to a decent sim buy yourself some sim time and get loaded with weather, alternatives going down, electrical, nav, autopilot and system failures the lot :) Do all this SP and see how good your SA and coping really is ;)

Pace

[SNS3Guppy]

Situational awareness is far more than buying a GPS or blindly following a magenta line. Situational awareness is far more than knowing where you are. Situational awareness is a term which encompasses every aspect of the flight, and by far the most critical tool to maintaining situational awareness is not a gadget or toy, but your brain. It's you.

Situational awareness absolutely can be taught, and it must. Any instructor who doesn't devote his or her full energy to instilling and developing situational awareness in a student is both an idiot, and a failure. Every aspect of instructing, every single bit of it, is about situational awareness.

[Conventional Gear]

I totally agree with your points Fuji, glad I was situationally aware enough to realise contributing to this thread with my perspective would help me learn something. I continue to fly with pilot X because they fly outside of the 'PPL box' and I know somehow it must be good for me. We really are good friends and get on well, even if one of us prefers to fly a heading and the other doesn't. :ok:

Regarding WWII fighter aces (there is a point to this), mentioned earlier, the very few really top scoring aces generally achieved it by planning. They never engaged unless they had an advantage. Most of the really high scoring aces 100+ kills, were German, learning their 'trade' early in the war. Attacks were from altitude, always from the sun and hit and run rather than dogfights.

Sure there are plenty of accounts too of simply natural airmen, who beat overwhelming odds using exceptional SA within dog fights, but here we are talking 6 to 12 total kills as opposed to hundreds.


I see an analogy to the debate on SA above. On one hand we have the concept of 'informed, calculated, planned SA'' on the other we have the 'thinking outside of the box or pure instinct type of SA', which is absolutely essential when the first method fails, it's also harder to get experience of as it means moving out of ones own comfort zone. More food for thought. :hmm:

I was also thinking of the 'traps' involved with SA. Such as the pilot who doesn't question where they are because they 'know', but are in fact mistaken. Common causal factor in CFIT accidents. Clearly poor SA was at fault, but the scary side is it may not even be apparent at the time.

As an addition I think it's worth considering that informed, calculated, planned SA done right, should reduce the incidence or the need of the second type. I feel another one of those flying sayings coming on. ;)

[Lord Spandex Masher]

I think a lot of over-analysis is happening here.

Firstly, is there really such a thing as good situational awareness? It would imply that there can be bad situational awareness as well, which is a bit of an oxymoron.

The clue is in the name. Situational awareness is an awareness of a situation.

There are many tools that you can use to help you gain and retain situational awareness. Not all of those tools are applicable all of the time, some are even subconscious. Selective use of these tools, as appropriate (and with a personal preference) is the key to maintaining situational awareness.

Every aspect of instructing, every single bit of it, is about situational awareness.

Doesn't leave much room for actually teaching someone how to, for instance, control an aeroplane.

[Conventional Gear]

Not sure it's over analysis, bad situational awareness is real, I know all too well, talking it out helps me understand it.

I've now got a picture of how to improve my own SA.

Keep the planning as I was taught, use the tools available at appropriate times as you have said.

Widen my comfort zone by stepping outside of the planned flight in a safe way, so on the day I actually have to, it's not theory but experience, thus my own level of SA improves for subsequent flights. (Thanks Fuji)

In all it's linked to capacity, if one is overloaded, SA can fall apart, I guess I'm looking now at how I can increase capacity and make abnormal situations (in the context of PPL training) routine and avoid overload and maintain good SA at all times.

[SNS3Guppy]

Lack of situational awareness is the deer in the headlights.

Situational awareness is the deer stepping to the side of the road.

Lack of situational awareness is not seeing the deer in time to stop.

Situational awareness is seeing the deer after it moved to the side of the road, pulling the truck over, and loading one's rifle for a clear, unencumbered shot.

True situational awareness is knowing one's backstop, and the location of the nearest game warden.

[Lord Spandex Masher]

CG, I know it's semantics really but if you aren't aware of a situation then you have no SA not 'bad' SA.

The amount of SA you have will vary, obviously, but I wouldn't say that having 'some' SA compared to having 'full' SA is necessarily bad as it's still better than having none.

[Conventional Gear]

LSM I would concede that 'poor' SA would be better use of language than 'bad' SA.

If my SA is reduced to only knowing I'm in a metal box in the air I guess it is poor SA, certainly never been anything bad about it, I like it, lots ;)

[Lord Spandex Masher]

I'll go with that:ok:

[Fuji Abound]

Tunnel vision is the most significant issue.

I gave the example earlier of where a pilot looks when they depart from a GA field. Some pilots have not been told how important it is to maintain an all round look out taking off; they are excused. However, those that have often still fail to do so. Why? Well if they haven't flown for a while they become focused - their vision tunnels on the same aspects of the departure. We all become obsessed with the air speed, the AI and whats happening in front. Now stop for a moment, force yourself every time you take off to look above left and right, and then look again at which ever direction that s** who has just joined crosswind is coming from. Form a good habit. don't just think in terms of the clean up checklist but make a mental note before you start the take off roll that you will look in every direction for traffic. I would go further and suggest it is worth rehearsing the other aspects of the departure. Think about the spot on the runway you will reject the take off if the need arises. Have you ever rejected a take off - it is worth telling AT that you are going to practice a rejected takeoff. Think about what you will do if you have an engine failure after take off. We have discussed that subject many times but how many pilots know at what height they will return to the airfield, how many pilots have thought about which way they will turn? Even before you line up how often do we line up because we are told to do so without a care for the next aircraft to land - it happens, I have been told to line up twice in my flying hours when infact the controller had "overlooked" the aircraft already on late final.

So these are examples of some of things we all "forget" to think about when taking off but which we should "force" ourselves to do every time and which if we care to self critique after the take off will give a good indication of whether we have allowed our vision to tunnel or we are up to our game.

[IO540]

The bottom line in safety is that of all the pilots who killed themselves, very few would have done "the mistake" in their armchair. For example any half-serious IFR pilot can read a plate - in his armchair - and fly it just fine, on FSX with frequent use of the Pause button :)

It is cockpit workload which does it, just about every time.

The establishment figures who believe that flying should be hard (plenty of them around - just see right here) believe that a pilot should be able to perform perfectly under a massive cockpit workload.

The airlines realised decades ago that is a fallacy, and much of the great safety of modern airline ops comes from a very low and carefully managed cockpit workload, made possible by 2 pilot and a lot of automation.

I was reading a book about SR71 pilot training, where they would fail a system after system, forcing the pilot do drop one task after another, and whether you got selected depended very much on the exact order in which you dropped the various tasks until you were just hanging in there doing just 1 or 2 basic things.

Flying, in most phases of flight, becomes very easy and very safe (hardware permitting) if the cockpit workload is suitably reduced.

[Pace]

Flying, in most phases of flight, becomes very easy and very safe (hardware permitting) if the cockpit workload is suitably reduced.

10540

Totally agree when everything is going right flying is very easy and safe but that is not what kills pilots!
It is when things go wrong, when the pilot is tested that some start to loose the plot.

I was flying from Nice to Gatwick at night climbing up through storm clouds through 24000 feet when all three screens went black so having an all singing dancing aeroplane is little to do with the situational awareness that I am talking about.

I have flown as a second pilot with some very good pilots. They all had one thing in common and that is an ability to pick up their game and to stay ahead of the aircraft to fit any situation which hits them.

It the pilot who can hand fly in clouds, operate the aircraft, nav and radios but who can still hold a conversation on the latest football match and still lock onto an abnormal indication.

Yes a lot is to do with experience and teaching but NOT ALL and neither is it to do with organisation.
The killer is overload or brain freeze and some have a natural much higher load limit before that is achieved.
My guess is its the ability to take in a lot of visual information which some have and some dont. Its a makeup thing.

Pace

[Fuji Abound]

i don't think we should be too concerned about killing yourself - after all that is not too common!

Every day SA is much more about avoiding infringements (which happen all the time), irritating other pilots because of unintentional poor airmanship, and scaring yourself a bit because you get into situations you wished you had not.

In reality these are some the everyday consequences of a loss of SA.

[IO540]

Totally agree when everything is going right flying is very easy and safe but that is not what kills pilots!
It is when things go wrong, when the pilot is tested that some start to loose the plot.

I think you will find that most CFITs took place with the pilot(s) being actually very comfortable indeed and suspecting absolutely nothing.

I was flying from Nice to Gatwick at night climbing up through storm clouds through 24000 feet when all three screens went black so having an all singing dancing aeroplane is little to do with the situational awareness that I am talking about.

So, you fly the heading, maintain the pitch/roll attitude, and tell ATC you are in the sh*t. ATC will part the waters for you. You DO NOT pretend to be a hairy chest hero and fly the rest of the filed route complete with a single pilot IFR 12-stepdown SDF approach into Kathmandu at night, IMC and icing conditions :)

Any monkey can fly straight-ish in IMC, with a little bit of radio chatter.

The killer is overload or brain freeze and some have a natural much higher load limit before that is achieved.

I don't think so. I think that mostly just causes c0ckups, and it definitely causes IR checkride failures :)

after all that is not too common!

Per individual, it happens only once :)

[Pace]

being actually very comfortable indeed and suspecting absolutely nothing.

So they had good SA? hmm:E I think not as they would not have been blind to where they were!

Most fatal accidents are not caused by one mistake but by an accumulation of further mistakes and a total lack of situational awareness which eventually leads to a crash when the pilot looses the plot.

Pace

[SNS3Guppy]

Any monkey can fly straight-ish in IMC, with a little bit of radio chatter.

It's that exact misplaced belief which leads a number of victims to their deaths, every year. Controlled flight into terrain, inadvertant entry into instrument conditions, continues to be one of the leading killers in private flying, right after fuel mismanagement/exhaustion.

A big segment of situational awareness is recognizing these myths and internalizing the concept that they are not true. Anything else is just fooling yourself.

[Fuji Abound]

Was that an interesting thread brought to an end with a smilie?