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Chapter 17 - Pilot Potpourri: Neat Aeronautical Information
17-11

ommended that you turn on your landing
light, day or night, in reduced visibility con-
ditions to make it easier for others to see you. Fig. 10
Wearing yellow lens sunglasses is often
recommended for hazy, smoggy conditions.
Yellow lenses allow for greater definition
and contrast of objects. I keep a pair in my
flight case for hazy days (I also have a pink-
rimmed pair in case I meet Elton John at
the airport). Yellow lens sunglasses put a
little more strain on my eyes if I wear them
for a long time, but the payoff is in easier
identification of traffic in smoggy and hazy
conditions.
Scanning for Traffic
During the Day
Avoiding midairs is predicated upon one
important premise: you must look outside
the cockpit. Far too often, pilots spend their
time with their head inside the cockpit
staring at instruments instead of honoring
the see and avoid concept. How much time
should be spent looking outside and inside
the cockpit? Many years ago a military
study indicated that on a 17 second cycle, approximately 3 seconds should be spent inside the cockpit with 14 seconds
spent looking outside. That’s approximately a 1 second inside to 5 second outside ratio. These are good numbers to follow.
Looking outside the cockpit is one thing; knowing how to look, another. Scanning for traffic requires that you
understand another peculiarity about the eye: objects are difficult to detect when the eye is in motion. Effective scan-
ning requires the eyes be held still for a
very short time to detect objects. Perhaps
the best way to scan is to move your eyes in
Fig. 11 a series of short, regularly spaced move-
ments that bring successive areas of the
sky into the central visual field. The FAA
suggests that each movement should not
exceed 10 degrees with each area being
observed for at least 1 second to enable
detection, as shown in Figure 10.
Since the brain is already trained to
process sight information presented from
left to right, you will probably find it easier
to start your scan from over your left shoul-
der proceeding to the right across the wind-
shield, as shown in Figure 11.
Whatever you do, don’t forget to scan the
area behind you. Many years ago an AOPA
(Aircraft Owner’s and Pilot’s Association)
study indicated that the majority of midairs
occur with one aircraft overtaking another
(one study indicated that 82% of the acci-
dents occurred this way). Obviously this is a
faster aircraft overtaking a slower one. This
becomes a greater concern when you’re oper-
ating in an area where fast and slow aircraft
mix. Scanning the rear quadrants of the air-
craft may take some neck bending or turn-