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Contents

Instructional Collision Avoidance
When I started instructing ground school in 1968 instructional flight instruction was a low percentage of all general aviation midair accidents. Ten years later instructional accidents equaled the same number of mid-airs as occurred during personal flying.
The cause/solution of this was multiple:
--The student is preoccupied with doing what he is doing.
--Students undergoing instruction do little scanning.
--Student relies on instructor to avoid aircraft.
--The instructor must get the student to scanning by teaching scanning skills.
--Aircraft scanning must be three-dimensional not the automotive two-dimensional.
--Students mimic the instructor
--Radar contact does not change PIC responsibility to see and avoid.
--The volume of traffic often overwhelms ATC traffic avoidance procedures.
--Radio communications is the best single universal aid for the individual pilot.
--Eyes outside the cockpit is still the most reliable means of aircraft avoidance.

The Art of Avoidance
--
The limitations of your eyes are a major weakness of the 'see and avoid' concept.
--80% of our total acquired information is via our eyesight.
--The understanding of how our vision works and does not work makes our seeing better.
--Your eyes are vulnerable to dust, fatigue, emotion, germs, age, alcohol and optical illusions.
--In flight vision factors are atmospheric conditions, windshield distortion, oxygen, glare, lighting, design and most of all vagaries of the mind.
--We see only what our mind lets us see.
--Our eyes require time to accommodate to different focal distances.
--If not focused the eyes default to no focus.
--It takes one of two seconds to accommodate to distant focus
--Once you see something you need ten more seconds to do something about it.
--Our field of focused vision is very narrow. We visualize an arc of 200 degrees but see less than 15 degrees.
--Motion can be perceived in the periphery of our visual field. A plane on a collision course will not move.
--Covering the sun with your thumb was a
--A plane just before it hits you will 'blossom' to fill the windshield.
--Flying into the sun you can't see but 'they' can.
--Flying away from the sun you can see but 'they' can't.
--The degree of contrast between a plane and the background determines if it can be seen.
--Your mind can cause cockpit myopia where it fails to 'see' what your eyes are looking at.
--Pilots tend to over-estimate their visual abilities along with everything else.

Planning Avoidance
Once on a flight the most likely cause of an emergency is going to be related to pre-flight preparation. This may relate to aircraft capability, maintenance, fuel, weather, or routes. Either singly or in combination, these planning factors can combine to create an emergency. Flight planning can control and reduce accident probability by such things as flying airport vicinity routes, altitudes, climbing at Vy, etc. The pilot's reasoning process at emergency occurrence makes a big difference, saving the airplane rates low on the important scale, survival rates high. Have a checklist that keeps the priorities in order. Change your mind only once. Make the most conservative response to preserve or improve the current level of safety. No flight is so important that it must be made.

The use of intelligence and knowledge can minimize the effects of attitude and personality in assessing flight risk. This means the ability to integrate knowledge, vigilance, selective attention, risk identification, information processing and problem solving into the processing ability of your brain. An alternate airport is part of the plan as are engine failure and weather changes. This planning is part of your training program. Contingency planning applies to a particular flight. You set up with those in the plane and those concerned on the ground an alternative contact or plan to cope with possibilities. Tell someone at home of your planned route, destination and alternatives. Arrange a communications program to cover these situations and the unexpected.

All activities involve some degree of risk. Flying, due to its multi-dimensional complexity, has more than its share. Risk can be managed if the pilot has properly prepared for the flight and is proficient and current in the required skills. Preparation is mental, physical and mechanical. Proficiency requires recent flying in aircraft type and weather conditions. 72% of pilot accidents have occurred where pilots are not trained or current in the conditions surrounding the accident. If you think training is expensive and stressful, just wait until you have an accident or a visit from the FAA.

Controlling the Hazards
I recommend that we avoid flying at 3000' or 2500 VFR at all times. 2850' is just as legal and safer. Practice airwork over hilly terrain where 4250' is again both legal and safer. Stay within gliding range of the flatlands. Avoid flying direct to VORs. If you really wish to avoid aircraft, fly early in the morning. This practice works fine unless you plan to cross MOAs in Nevada. Military pilots know of the advantages of morning flights, too.

"Operation Lights On" was an FAA suggestion that landing lights be used to improve detection between aircraft. Some aircraft systems now have landing lights that pulse to attract attention. During the bird migratory season the lights enable the birds to see and avoid. During periods of low visibility the ATIS may request that landing lights be used for airport arrivals and departures. If you are showing a light so advise ATC when you make your call-up. The use of strobe in daytime flying increases you visibility by a factor of ten.  

Many of the Bay Area airports now have BRITE radar displays that allow radar location but not identification of nearby aircraft who can accurately give their arrival location by radio.  This will greatly improve the specialists' ability to make a visual sighting.  They are starting to call aircraft 'in sight' long before they turn downwind and may clear them as #1 to land.

Practice VOR tracking and holding patterns at 850' AGL. Use a suitable VOR. You are much less likely to meet another airplane that low. The VOR is more sensitive and requires more precise flying down low. Do your airwork about 600' below the floor of a Class B shelf that is not used as a flyway. Most pilots are insecure in their ability and knowledge of Class B operations to do flight operations there. This makes for fewer airplanes in the area. Get and use radar advisories where available.

Always make 45-degree entries to uncontrolled airports. This particular FAA recommendation has been the largest single reason for reductions in mid-airs over the past twenty years. A common fault of the 45 entry is the failure of instructors to teach that the 45-entry is aimed at the landing threshold and not the mid point of the runway.  By doing this the inbound aircraft will double the separation of departing traffic making standard 45-degree departures.  Draw it out and you will see the difference..  

Do not arrive at airports via routes and altitudes that you know are often used by other aircraft. There are many occasions when closer to the ground can be safer. You know that departing traffic coming toward you is climbing or at least should be.  This means you will be safer down low, sooner than later. Monitor local frequencies when following freeways down low. The CHP flies low and slow even in marginal conditions. When flying along roads or valleys stay on the right side.

Cross-country flights should be at altitudes high enough to minimize any local traffic conflicts. Don't follow airways and keep a good lookout when crossing airways regardless of hemispheric rule. Airways are eight miles wide and not all cross country pilots update altimeter settings. Pilots who are insecure in their pilotage skills tend to follow airways.

Know where the local flight schools have their practice areas. Sierra out of Oakland likes to practice Southeast of Mt. Diablo. There is a small legal aerobatics area East of Mt. Diablo. There is a very busy flyway North to Northeast of Concord. It is best to avoid this quadrant at altitudes less than 5000'. Another busy route extends from San Jose up to CCR along 680. The preferred altitude for this route seems to be 2500 so choose some other altitude..

Over 50% of all accidents occur because of pilot perceived time pressures. When an individual feels time is important the brain begins to screen the available information so as to get a desired flight plan result rather than the safest one. The pilot becomes so focused due to time pressure that other available options are outside the perceptive scan.

A difficult flight decision can be avoided by making an early decision for avoidance. When two choices appear regarding fuel, get fuel; when two choices appear regarding weather, turn back and avoid; when two choices regarding fatigue appear, stop and spend the night. As part of pre-flight planning poise several two-choice options as might occur and make your decision ahead of time. These pre-decided selections should exist for both situations requiring instantaneous choices such as engine failure on takeoff as well as choices of where to eat en route.

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