Things that go 'bump' in the night (or day)
The FAA realizes that fact so clearly that it has placed collision avoidance within the realm of pass/fail events to occur on every practical test. Contained in the list of Special Emphasis Areas found in each practical test standards (PTS) volume, collision avoidance remains one of those enigmatic subjects that the simplest of minds would assume our self-preservation instincts would make paramount. Alas, that is an inexplicably faulty logic. Pilot examiners do occasionally encounter the occasional applicant who wears a headset. In this case, that means the head is set straight forward from engine start to shutdown, never turning right nor left throughout the entire flight. Yes, it happens.
Your pilot examiner is likely to have a strong sense of self-preservation, and you can expect that trait to become a silent foundation during your checkride. Your pilot examiner will expect you to be constantly alert to all traffic movement within your field of vision. Such alertness includes you scanning your entire visual field outside the aircraft in order to ensure that you detect any nearby aircraft. For you to do this effectively demands that you be aware that many aircraft enjoy performance capabilities greatly exceeding those of your training airplane. Speed and enthusiastic rates of climb or descent often startle low-experience level pilots. Resulting high closure rates limit the time available for detection, decision, and evasive action if necessary.
Because of this, external vigilance is a vital part of flying in general and testing in particular. The probability of spotting a potential collision threat increases as you and your student reinforce the habit of looking outside far more than inside. Pilot examiners know that the most effective scanning comes from a series of short, regularly spaced head and eye movements that bring successive areas of sky into one's central visual field. Ideally, each movement should be not more than 10 degrees, with each section of sky scrutinized for at least one full second. Few DPEs demand a specific scanning pattern, because individuals tend to see differently. Using this knowledge, pilots should develop individual scanning patterns and then adhere to that pattern each time they fly.
Some pilot applicants and their flight instructors seem reluctant to address collision avoidance aggressively, relying instead on the "big sky theory." The big sky theory is an insidious, faulty logic that insists that aircraft are miniscule occupants of a vast and limitless sky, protected by that sky's vastness and the laws of chance. Not a comforting principle on which to bet anyone's life. "See and avoid," on the other hand, recognizes the heavens' immensity while tempering that fact with modern flying-machines' astounding mobility.
Another misunderstanding of aviation's most basic safety tool stems from its oft-misnaming: "see and be seen." It's common to hear pilot applicants state that see and be seen is the official FAA collision-avoidance foundation. That's wrong. However, given today's crop of aviation textbooks, it is understandable that so many fliers make this mistake. During the semester in which this article was written, your editor taught two college-level classes, and both textbooks refer to see and be seen instead of see and avoid. You and your flight instructor may actually use this term instead of see and avoid, all the while thinking that there is no difference. There is.
There should be no dispute that warbirds are among the most popular of aviation's historical artifacts. Flying museums prosper, titillating their patrons with sights and sounds of bygone glories, part of which include aircraft painted carefully and deliberately to hide them from enemy eyes. Decades after these machines have served so nobly, collectors and enthusiasts clamor to see them in their former glory, camouflage and all. We can do this, because our legal basis for collision avoidance is see and avoid. Were the legal foundation see and be seen, you would have to paint your Messerschmitt 109E in high-visibility orange with strobes and anticollision lights mounted to its every quadrant. Sad thought, no?
Interesting, you say, but how does this help you to prepare for a coming checkride? Perhaps in this way: Recognize that combat aircraft of World War II, subdued to avoid detection, were still shot down in astounding numbers because their opponents were looking for them! When we fly, we need to look outside. The importance of flight instructors training students to devote maximum attention to collision avoidance when flying in today's air traffic environment simply cannot be overemphasized.
Your pilot examiner should direct attention to your vigilance of other air traffic, adequate clearance of the area before beginning a maneuver, and your applied knowledge of the airspace, available air traffic control ATC services, regulations, good operating practices, procedures, and techniques necessary to attain high standards of air safety. Best of all, these skills and habits are supremely easy to adopt.
For example, the FAA and its DPEs have seen applicants strive for perfection between maneuvers. Preceding a requested maneuver, flawless clearing turns render excellent views in one direction, then the other. Meanwhile, altitude slips slightly during those clearing turns. The applicant then worries the aircraft to exactly the normal altitude, trimming the airplane, adjusting power, trimming again, adjusting power again, and trimming once more. Shortly, our applicant finds that airspeed is slightly below the normal entry speed. Power adjustment. Trim adjustment. Power. Trim. There! Now the altitude is off once again. More scenery passes, as does time, but applicants in this state are oblivious of that fact. Their entire world is the aircraft's instrument panel. At long last, airspeed, altitude and heading are exact, and a maneuver follows. Sadly, some miles and perhaps four or five minutes since the clearing turns have also passed. Is this acceptable collision avoidance? Remember that examiners are to judge the maneuvers according to published standards. Collision avoidance--not mere procedure--is the purpose of clearing turns.
For all that, the simplest and most effective thing that I believe most instructor/student teams can do to improve collision avoidance is to pay attention to their airplanes' sun visors. Over the years, I have conducted a number of tests after sundown, and in going on two decades, can recall only two applicants who intentionally stowed the sun visors. One might come to believe that sun visors are sacrosanct. Touch them! Move them! They are meant to be adjustable. If they no longer adjust, hanging down limply all through the flight, squawk them. Good collision avoidance is not necessarily an art. It is as much a necessity as safe landings, for without good scanning strategies, you will someday not make it to that landing. Besides, many of us learned to fly because looking outside of an airplane is among life's greatest joys.
Dave Wilkerson is a designated pilot examiner, writer/photographer, and historian. He has been a certificated flight instructor since 1981 with approximately 2,000 hours of dual instruction, and is a single- and multiengine commercial-rated pilot.
Download the Private Pilot Practical Test Standards from AOPA Flight Training Online.
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