Ian wrote:


I find the radio useful for expanding awareness of those things which
are not readily visible.

It also has a tendancy to concentrate attention on the gliders you can
here. Accidents have happened - to powered aircraft as well - when
pilots assumed that what they could hear was what they could see,


I very nearly included a reference to that in a recent response to you.
I'm glad you mentioned the fallacy of believing that those you hear are
those you see, or that there is no one whom you do not hear. Yours is
not an argument for discontinuing radio monitoring, however.

Your position seems to be that removing as many inputs as possible will
insure a focus on flying the final approach safely. Again, I believe
that expanding your awareness and prioritizing your responses in real
time is far safer than pre-determining what you wish to know and what
you can afford at any cost to ignore.

Admittedly, as I get older I also wish to reduce the cacophony of
stimuli, but I also believe there is a limit beyond which we must not
cocoon ourselves. Better to keep pushing our limits outward, even as we
might wish to do otherwise.

Fortunately, or otherwise, I have some small experience in very complex
piloting situations, including urgent life-or-death dialogs on three
different radios--each on a different frequency band--in a rather
challenging combat environment. I don't expect others to have a similar
need ever to operate near their true limits. But it does color my views
of the topic of awareness, processing, and prioritizing cockpit information.

Enjoy the new season, and always be safe.



Jack