Ground school lesson
Seeing and avoiding traffic
Nothing in the cockpit protects you like your own eyes used correctly. This lesson is how to use them, and what to do when two aircraft want the same piece of sky.
What you will be able to do
- Scan in the way that actually detects converging traffic.
- Apply the basic right-of-way rules.
- Avoid wake turbulence on and around the runway.
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Step 1 of 3
How to actually see traffic
Eyes detect motion poorly at the exact spot that matters: an aircraft on a collision course with you does not move in your windscreen. It sits still and grows. The scan that works is a series of short, focused looks, each sector held long enough for your eyes to focus, rather than one smooth sweep that blurs past everything.
Habits that find traffic
- Scan in 10-degree blocks, a second or two per block, then move on.
- A target with no relative motion that is getting bigger is on a collision course: act, do not admire.
- Clear the sky in the direction of every turn before you turn, especially in the pattern.
- Open-frame gyroplanes have marvellous visibility. Use it, and remember most other cockpits do not.
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Step 2 of 3
Who gives way
Situation The rule Converging The aircraft on the right has the right of way. Head-on Both alter course to the right. Overtaking The overtaken aircraft has the right of way; pass well clear to the right. Landing Aircraft on final, and the lower of two on approach, have the right of way. Do not abuse it to cut in. Less manoeuvrable craft Balloons, gliders and aircraft in distress take priority over powered aircraft. Right of way is a tiebreaker, not armour. The whole of 14 CFR 91.113 sits under one sentence: regardless of who has the right of way, every pilot is obliged to see and avoid.
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Step 3 of 3
Wake turbulence
Every wing and rotor making lift sheds wingtip vortices: horizontal tornadoes trailing behind, strongest behind heavy, slow, clean aircraft. They sink below the generating aircraft's path and drift with the wind, and they can roll a light gyroplane beyond its control authority.
Landing behind a larger aircraft
Stay at or above its final-approach path and land beyond its touchdown point. Its vortices sink below where it flew.
Departing after one
Lift off before its rotation point and climb upwind of its path, or simply wait. Two or three minutes costs nothing; a vortex encounter at fifty feet can cost everything.
A light crosswind is the trap case: it can hold one vortex sitting on the runway. When a heavy aircraft has just used your runway, waiting is the professional move.
Check yourself
3 questions. Pick an answer to see whether it is right and why.
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An aircraft appears stationary in your windscreen and is slowly growing. What is happening?
Constant bearing with decreasing range is the collision geometry, and its lack of relative motion is exactly what makes it hard to spot. Alter course and re-scan.
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Two aircraft converge at the same altitude. Who has right of way?
Converging traffic: the aircraft to the right has the right of way, and either way both pilots remain obliged to see and avoid.
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Landing behind a departing large airplane, you should touch down where?
Its vortices begin at rotation and sink behind it. Staying above the path and touching down beyond that point keeps you out of them, and a gyroplane is emphatically not immune.
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FAA Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge, 14 CFR 91.113, and AIM chapter 7 wake turbulence guidance (public domain).