What the FAA Says About Visual Scanning

Scanning the sky for other aircraft is a very important factor in avoiding midair collisions, and it should cover all areas of the sky visible from the cockpit. Most of us are instinctively alert for potential head-on encounters with another aircraft. Actually, a study of fifty mid-air collisions revealed that only 8% were head-on. However, 42% were collisions between aircraft heading in the same direction. So, compared with opposite-direction traffic, your chances of having a midair are over five times greater with an aircraft you are overtaking or one that is overtaking you. It is necessary for you to develop and practice a technique that allows the efficient scanning of the surrounding airspace and the monitoring of cockpit instrumentation as well. You can accomplish this by performing a series of short, regularly spaced eye movements that bring successive areas of the sky into the central (foveal) visual field. To scan effectively, scan from right to left or left to right. Begin scanning at the top of the visual field in front of you and then move your eyes inward toward the bottom. Use a stop-turn-stop type eye motion. The duration of each stop should be at least one second but not longer than two to three seconds.

To see and identify objects under conditions of low ambient illumination, avoid looking directly at an object for more than 2 to 3 seconds (because it will bleach out). Instead, use the off-center viewing that consists of searching movements of the eyes (10 degrees above, below, or to either side) to locate an object, and small eye move- ments to keep the object in sight. By switching your eyes from one off-center point to another every  two to three seconds, you will continue to detect the object in the peripheral field of vision. The reason for using off-center viewing has to do with the location of rods in the periphery of the retina for night or low-intensity night vision (peripheral), and their absence in the center of the retina (fovea). Pilots should practice this off-center scanning technique to improve safety during night flights.

Now for a Dramatic (OK, sort of dramatic) Illustration of the Effect

Drivers have the same kind of issues. Motorcyclists have the problem in spades since they have to be very concerned with vehicle drivers who may not see them easily because of size and at the same time have less of a personal stake a potential accident.  The Motorcycle Safety Foundation has a page that shows how focusing on one small area can cause you to loose sight of other targets that may be right in front of you. Check out the link below…

Motion Induced Blindness

So, how green are electric vehicles? The article below may surprise you.

But electric aircraft are still cool!

Why Electric Cars Are More Polluting than Gas Guzzlers — at Least in China

Meanwhile, read on!

On Dec. 31, 2011, the 45 cent per gallon federal “blender credit” for ethanol finally ended with little fanfare, as described in this article from U.S. News.

Since fuel producers are still required to meet the RFS ethanol mandates in EISA 2007, the end to the credits will have no effect on the continued adulteration of our nation’s gasoline supply that also renders much of gasoline useless as an aviation fuel.

If an end to taxpayer subsidies was not hard enough on ethanol producers and distributors, the latest trends in the overall sale of gasoline must be especially foreboding. As seen in this chart from the DOE’s EIA, monthly deliveries of gasoline have dropped by a whopping 50% in the past decade, and are the lowest they’ve been since the early 1980s. This means that demand for ethanol, despite federal mandates requiring its sale, have also dropped dramatically, as reported by the Des Moines Register, which reports than many ethanol producers are now operating at a loss or are closing facilities.

Continue Reading at GA News

Mike Stratman has been a Rotax expert since the 1980s. Mr. Stratman is also the author of the well known articles “The Proper Care & Feeding of the Rotax Engine” as seen in Ultralight Flying Magazine. Eric Tucker has been a respected name in the Ultralight and Light Sport Aviation community for many years. Mr. Tucker has been instrumental in the training curriculum and maintenance of both 2 stoke and 4 stroke Rotax engines.

Graduates may be eligible for Independent Repair Center status, providing shop promotions and parts discounts. For more information or to sign up, please visit the CPS website at www.800-airwolf.com/classes, or call us at 800-AIRWOLF(247-9653).

The Aero Technical Institute’s Director and Rotax expert, Dean Vogel, advised, “More than 80% of the aircraft in the Light-Sport Aircraft category are using the Rotax power plants.” He noted they still have class slots open for the days leading up to the Sebring LSA Expo.

ATI Classes Offered

• Class #1 Service Training ($495) — Offered January 13th and 14th — Covers the engine systems, operational issues, routine service, and inspections, including the condition inspection (100 hour or annual). It is intended for the Light Sport operator/owner and as an introductory course for homebuilders and licensed maintainers. Each course is a prerequisite for the one that follows.
• Class #2 Maintenance ($495) — Offered January 16th and 17th — Continues deeper into engine systems and installation issues, troubleshooting and major component disassembly. It is intended for homebuilders and licensed maintainers. Each course is a prerequisite for the one that follows.
• Class #3 Heavy Maintenance ($695) — Continues covering engine disassembly of all components, except splitting the case, and goes into the repair of the major engine components. This course is intended for maintainers who will be setting up or working in a heavy maintenance repair center. A minimum experience level is also required for the Heavy Maintenance level of training.
• Class for 2-stroke Rotax engines — A class is scheduled for the two days immediately after the Expo (23rd and 24th).

To learn more about Lockwood’s Aero Training Institute, visit their headquarters at the Sebring, Florida airport; call 863-655-5100; or send e-mail to lockwood@digital.net.

About  Lockwood’s ATI

Aero Technical Institute (ATI) specializes in Rotax Aircraft Engine Maintenance Training. ATI is associated with Lockwood Aviation Supply in Sebring, Florida, a company that has been specializing in Rotax aircraft engines for over 25 years and is the leading Service Center for the 9-series engines in the United States. ATI was formed to take the hard-earned wisdom from those years of experience and provide it to Airframe & Powerplant (A&P) mechanics; LSA Repairmen, and owners of Rotax-powered aircraft. Classes are offered to suit any prior expertise:  A&Ps serving the growing Light Sport community; Light Sport Repairman with the Maintenance endorsement; or, owners/renters of an aircraft which is powered by a Rotax engine.

The FAA has published their schedule and you can download the PDF from the link below.

FAA_Forum_Schedule_Sun-N-Fun_2012

That is obviously bad because you can be certain that the bureaucrats within the federal government have absolutely no professional interest in the success or failure of an individual airport. I’ve heard several times from FAA staffers that they are ‘above economic concerns.’ Great. Who is going to represent the businesses or pilots if the airport management won’t do it, the airport authority won’t do it or the feds won’t do it?

Here is a story about how the TSA is managing to screw up another airport with no pushback from the management of the airport itself.

Airport Users Fume about Security, TSA

In a commercial operation, managers would be working to cut costs to match the decline in sales. In a government operation, the managers just ask the public to pay more. And that is really the crux of the issue with the AeroNav Division of the FAA. They want to make as much providing a digital product as they do providing the printed product so they can keep the presses running and the pressmen employed. Unfortunately this is not the way the real world works.

Ben Sclair of GA News talks about the issue and provides copies of FAA documents showing the proposed user fees that the FAA is now denying were proposed. The FAA Twitter Post denying proposed product prices read:

On the other hand, the slide show with the proposed product prices and a great editorial can be found at:

Paper charts still needed, but AeroNav is wrong

The link to the impressive print shop the FAA runs is:

Charting Your Safety: The Birth of an Aeronautical Chart

Can anybody say “Outsource?”

And that, unfortunately, is where the FAA has become a victim of their own success. They are able to make a few sales for the digital product and that has cost them sales on many paper-products. It hasn’t helped that the FAA has made it more difficult to even find the paper charts in airports. Since they reworked their minimum purchase rules in order to be a chart vendor, many airports have simply quit carrying the charts.

So the FAA’s cure is to begin charging outrageous fees for end users of the digital products. Instead of paying $9.50 a couple of times a year (for a local pilot), the FAA want to charge everyone over $100 per year which is quite a jump.

Recently a meeting was held by the AeroNav charting division on this very subject. Plenty of people from the industry participated and here are some thoughts from ForeFlight, one of the participants.On AeroNav’s Digital Chart Agent Proposal