Plain English Meaning

Splitting your attention so you can do several flying tasks at the same time instead of getting locked onto just one.

Full Definition

The pilot skill of consciously distributing visual and mental focus across multiple tasks at once — such as flying the airplane, scanning for traffic, monitoring instruments, navigating, and tracking a ground reference — without fixating on any single one.

Context Anchor

Seen in ground reference maneuvers, where the pilot must watch the airplane’s path over the ground while still controlling the airplane and looking for other traffic.

Derivation

Division comes from a word meaning “to separate into parts.” Attention comes from a word meaning “to stretch toward” or “give notice to.” Together, the phrase points to sharing your focus among several important parts of the , not giving all of it to one place.