SA or Good Decision Making- Chicken or the Egg?

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Firebird2XC

Well-Known Member
I was pondering the concepts of Situational Awareness and Good Decision Making in aviation the other day. I wondered- are they really as much the "Chicken or the Egg" kind of question as they seem to be?

I know my opinion on the matter, but I thought I might be able to round it out with some feedback from the JC crew. So what's your take on how these two concepts influence each other? How do you make each one a better asset in your day to day flying and your career? In life?

Discuss. :)
 
Firebird2XC said:
I was pondering the concepts of Situational Awareness and Good Decision Making in aviation the other day. I wondered- are they really as much the "Chicken or the Egg" kind of question as they seem to be?
Click to expand...

You have to be in a situation to make a decision.
 
I've always thought if sort of as the 'chicken or the egg'. Being aware is a decision, isn't it?

One cannot be situational aware without making the right decisions to gather the right information. Therefore, one must make a good decision first. But this in turn leads to good SA, which is really required to make good decisions. I'd say they're both equally valuable.. and this thread equally dead.
 
I don't think it's a chicken-or-egg argument.

Decisionmaking has to do with assessing all aspects of a situation, evaluating possible outcomes of those actions, and then acting on the course of action you feel is best.

Situational Awareness has to do with being able to correctly perceive what is occurring around you.

Good SA contributes to correct Decisionmaking. I can't really think of a way that making a bad decision leads to bad SA.

That being said, it's all part of the feedback loop that is constantly occurring in a pilot's brain, so of course they're related.
 
Hacker15e said:
I don't think it's a chicken-or-egg argument.

Decisionmaking has to do with assessing all aspects of a situation, evaluating possible outcomes of those actions, and then acting on the course of action you feel is best.

Situational Awareness has to do with being able to correctly perceive what is occurring around you.

Good SA contributes to correct Decisionmaking. I can't really think of a way that making a bad decision leads to bad SA.

That being said, it's all part of the feedback loop that is constantly occurring in a pilot's brain, so of course they're related.
Click to expand...

Good take on this. My "bad decision leads to bad SA" concept was continuing VFR to IMC or something like that. If you become unaware of position, aircraft attitude, etc, your ability to make decisions becomes eroded by poor SA/sensory input. That said, I may just be over thinking this.
 
As an instructor, I use this model to help determine the root cause of a student's error:

Perception ==> Decision ==> Execution

Perception: Does the student correctly understand what is happening (ergo, does he have SA)?
Decision: Based on his perception/SA, did he make the appropriate decision about what to do or what action to take?
Execution: Based on that decision, did he correctly make the mechanical inputs required to effectively execute that course of action?

This is a constantly re-occurring loop, and is sort of a simplification/derivative of Boyd's OODA Loop.

It shows what I believe to be the relationship between SA and Decisionmaking, and it's somewhat of a 1-way street (SA leading to decisions, not the other way around), but one that is also a circle because you're constantly going back to step one and re-evaluating what is occurring.
 
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