Bandwidth changes every decision

The amount of mental bandwidth we have changes almost every decision we make when we are flying cross-country. If all of your attention is being used to manage the wing, there is very little left for the information around you.

The more wing-control training you do, the more automation you create around the wing's movements. That automation frees up bandwidth. We want to reach the point where we can perform fairly dynamic actions while still retaining a large amount of awareness.

In the wild, when something happens close to the ground or takes you by surprise, your bandwidth will shrink. Tunnel vision will return. If you are already experiencing tunnel vision and very high stress while performing a manoeuvre in a controlled environment, you are likely to become cognitively overloaded if the same thing happens unexpectedly in ordinary flying. You have added another layer of stress on top.

Training with a bigger awareness bubble

The aim is to repeat an exercise until the feelings and sensations have become familiar and your awareness bubble is large enough to include more than the wing.

That awareness bubble should include height loss, directional change, proximity to other pilots, terrain and your general airspace. You should not be left with a tiny awareness bubble completely fixated on the wing.

This is one of the reasons professionally supervised wing-control training matters. The goal is not to make the exercise dramatic. The goal is to make the sensations recognisable enough that your attention can widen again.

Preparation reduces fear of the unknown

Pre-course learning helps because you have much more knowledge about what you are going to experience. Pure provides detailed explanations of each movement and the feelings and sensations involved. That reduces fear of the unknown.

Every supervised exercise can free bandwidth for a similar situation in ordinary flying because it will no longer be the first time you have experienced it. With enough repetition, you begin collecting physical sensations, visual clues and recognisable patterns.

That allows more of your attention to remain available for external information rather than being completely fixated on the wing or overwhelmed by not understanding what is happening.

Related reading: the Pure Method, why technical skills are not enough, and what active piloting really means.