The three general types of activities in flight are controlling, monitoring, and planning. Controlling is the actual flying of the aircraft, either changing or maintaining its motions. Monitoring is the act of keeping track of the flight processes, checking if the aircraft is flying according to our expectations, and seeing if we are following our chosen course of action. Finally, planning is determining what we will do in the future on our flight.
Situational awareness is the skill that allows us to effectively perform the fundamental flight activities of controlling, monitoring, and planning. This awareness will promote better decision-making based on the feedback from these activities. It is therefore helpful to classify several basic situations that the pilot will encounter during flight. As alluded to earlier, piloting the aircraft requires physical, analytical, and intuitive skills. As we become more experienced pilots we learn to switch from one mode to the next as demanded by different situations. Further, time can be ‘of the essence’ and adds its own hue to the situation.
While each situation is different, I think it is useful to think about three basic types represented by different mixtures of the basic activities and other factors such as time and focus. Since the types of situations that I in mind have a grab bag of characteristics, I have chosen to colour code them. As with all things in flying, there is a certain quality or feel to them, so colours seem appropriate. I suggest that pilots at different phases of flight will find themselves living in either of the ‘Green’, ‘Yellow’, or ‘Red’ Zones.