Safety of Flight Practices

Safety of Flight Practices

1. collision avoidance procedures

   • Proper scanning techniques
   • Clearing procedures
   • Runway incursion avoidance
   • Stall awareness
   • Positive transfer of controls
   • Flight deck workload management

2. collision avoidance

   • Pilots must be alert to the potential for midair collision and impeding loss of separation
   • 14 CFR part 91
     • "See and Avoid"
       • Vigilance must be maintained at all times by each person operating an aircraft
       • Pilots have a responsibility for continuously maintaining a vigilant outlook regardless of the type of aircraft being flown and the purpose of the flight.
       • Most midair collisions happen during the day, in good weather and within 5 miles of the airport
       • Relies on knowledge of the limitations of the human eye
         • Pilots should be on constant alert to all traffic movement within their vision, as well as periodically scanning the entire visual field outside their aircraft to ensure detection of conflicting traffic.
       • Remember the performance of the planes capabilities
         • Both speed and rates of climb/decent result in high closure rates limiting the time for detection, decision, and evasive action.

3. What helps spotting a potential collision

   • Time looking outside
   • Helpful techniques
     • Human eyes tends to focus somewhere
       • Even a featureless sky
       • Pilot should shift glances and refocus at intervals.
         • Do this by scanning the instruments half the time and outside the other.
       • Eyes may require several seconds to refocus when switching views from the instrument panel to distant objects outside.

4. Proper scanning requires the constant sharing of attention with other piloting tasks

   • Can be degraded by fatigue, boredom, illness, anxiety or preoccupation
   • How effective scanning is accomplished
     • Series of short, regularly-spaced eye movements. Should not exceed 10 degrees. Make sure its comfortable to you.

5. Clearing turns

   • Its important to make sure the turn is not going to proceed into another airplane's flightpath.

6. Runway Incursion Avoidance

   • Any occurrence at an airport involving an aircraft, person, vehicle or object on the ground that creates a collision hazard or results in a loss of separation with an aircraft taking off, landing, or intending to land.
     • Three major areas contributing to runway incursion