The Liberty Incident

Critical Seconds

When an aircraft approaches a target, how much time does a pilot have to identify the target?

FAA VFR Pilot Exam-O-Gram No. 29, using calculations from the U.S. Naval Aviation Bulletin, published a "Critical Seconds, Distance, Speed, and Time" chart to inform pilots of the time/distance elements at speeds of 360 MPH and 600 MPH. Notice that from one mile away, a pilot flying at 600 MPH is 6 seconds from a target and a pilot flying at 360 MPH is 10 seconds from target. At one half mile, the time element is reduced to between 3 and 5 seconds.

The chart is produced as it appears in the FAA Exam-O-Gram and then split in order to present larger text for easier reading.

 

Download FAA Critical Seconds Chart

 

The free Acrobat Reader can be
downloaded from the Adobe web site
Download Adobe Acrobat