Decision-Making, Physiology, and Emergencies

Area V's judgment material. Most of it is common sense wearing official vocabulary - learn the vocabulary.

ADM, CRM, SRM

• ADM (aeronautical decision-making) is the umbrella term: the systematic process of assessing risk and making safe choices. CRM and risk management live under it.
• CRM (crew resource management): using ALL available resources - visual observers, crew, checklists, information sources - effectively. Applies to any operation with more than one person.
• SRM (single-pilot resource management): the same discipline flying alone.

The five hazardous attitudes (and antidotes)

The exam gives you a quote or scenario and asks which attitude it shows - and sometimes asks for the FAA's antidote phrasing:

Risk management

Definition: identifying, assessing, and mitigating hazards before and during flight. The four-step sequence, in order:

1. Identify the hazard ← "What is the FIRST step?" - always this.
2. Assess the risk.
3. Mitigate (checklists, spare batteries, altitude margins, weather checks).
4. Decide and monitor - proceed or delay, and keep re-evaluating.

Situational awareness: perceiving, understanding, and anticipating everything affecting the operation - built by experience, lost by fixation.

Physiological factors

The RPIC must be in condition to fly; these are the testable degraders:

• Fatigue - slows reaction and judgment; the fix is rest, not caffeine.
• Stress - narrows attention, drives risky shortcuts.
• Hyperventilation - breathing too fast flushes CO2 from the blood: dizziness, tingling, blurred vision. Remedy: breathe into a paper bag or consciously slow your breathing.
• Hypoxia - oxygen deficiency (altitude): confusion, dizziness, unconsciousness. Distinguish by cause: hyperventilation = low CO2; hypoxia = low O2. Symptoms overlap; the cause is the discriminator.
• Dehydration - headaches, dizziness, impaired concentration; worse in heat, worsened by caffeine.
• Alcohol and drugs - 8 hours bottle-to-throttle, 0.04% BAC max, and the rules apply to the whole crew, VO included. Refusing a law-enforcement BAC test costs you the certificate. Any drug (including over-the-counter) that affects your faculties makes you unfit to operate.
• Vision - glasses/contacts are fine ("unaided vision" doesn't exclude them); binoculars may only be used momentarily, never to maintain VLOS. Proper traffic scanning: short, regular eye movements in ~30° sectors, 2–3 seconds each, overlapping ~10° - not a continuous sweep. Fixating one point creates tunnel vision.

Emergencies

• Lost link: know your programmed lost-link behavior before takeoff; test whether commands respond; use Return-to-Home deliberately.
• Flyaway (drone departs uncontrolled): the real work is preflight - GPS lock before launch, compass/IMU calibration, site survey for interference (metal structures, power lines, radio towers), verified RTH altitude. In the moment: follow your emergency procedure, attempt manual recovery, and file the §107.9 report if the outcome requires it.
• Critically low battery: fastest direct route home; land early rather than stretch it.
• Sudden weather: reduce altitude, get it down, reassess.
• The RPIC may deviate from any Part 107 rule to the extent needed to meet an in-flight emergency - and must report the deviation to the FAA if asked.

Traps to drill

• First step of risk management = identify.
• Paper bag = hyperventilation, oxygen = hypoxia.
• Hazardous-attitude questions quote a mindset; match it, then know the official antidote wording.
• Binoculars: momentary only. Glasses: always fine.
• Scanning: sectors, not sweeps.