Over the last couple of decades, there’s been a growing realization within aviation’s training and safety arenas about situational awareness. The conversation generally involves ways to enhance situational awareness in the cockpit and often concentrates on technological solutions, like moving maps, or displaying real-time traffic and weather. The presumption is that greater situational awareness is better and that all of us have at least some measure of this characteristic.
What’s often omitted from these discussions is some base definition of what situational awareness, or SA, actually is and how it contributes to safety. Pilots usually are ready and willing to embrace something that enhances safety but so much of the jargon tossed around fails to provide the kind of context and explanations needed for complete understanding. Put yet another way, pilots truly are the creatures of (often bad) habit we’ve been told about since primary training, and we often need a whack or two to get our attention when something different comes along.
