Situational awareness is more than exceptional vision

Superior situational awareness, an extraordinary awareness of the total flight environment and aerial combat situation, is a significant contributor to success in aerial engagement. Review of over 1,000 published sources has led to the formulation of situational awareness as being principally in the cognitive domain. Superior awareness involves exceptional sensitivity to performance-critical cues in the operational environment, an exceptional capacity to anticipate changes in system states and operational conditions, and the ability to act on those changes in a proactive mode. Three important constructs are described: 1) automatic information processing; 2) near-threshold processing; and 3) skilled memory. In combination, they constitute a pilot attribute which uniquely facilitates the full armamentarium of skills and abilities of the superior tactical pilot.