This research platform draws on different disciplines. Each one contributes to each section. Drawing on other disciplines requires interdisciplinary thinking. Gibson was thinking interdisciplinary when formulating his ecological approach and anti-Cartesian stance. A fundamental element of Gibson's ecological approach to visual perception is moving over surfaces. In this relationship with the surfaces, there are things the environment gives to the observer that the observer sees. Looking out onto the environment, what the environment reciprocates in structure and function for an animal, they are not subjective or contingent upon the moods or needs of the animal/observer. They are relational properties of the environment. There exist opportunities for the animal/observer whether or not an animal/observer wants to use them. The basic features of the environment what Gibson calls surfaces, edges, objects, medium, events, substances, and animate objects (1986) possess resources to perceive.

What happens seconds before pilots take off into the weather? They take one more look at the windsock to see if the wind direction has changed. Although not possible for every takeoff, the ability to foresee weather or anticipate bad weather is how pilots perceive their environment, which comes from their 'know-how' of what to look for in the weather. But it's more than this. The helicopter itself flies in the atmosphere. An important factor in the atmosphere that affects the helicopter's ability to perform depends on the density of the air, with pressure differences that affect the density (denseness or thickness). Temperatures also affect air density. In other words, all around us are parcels of air, and where we are in the atmosphere, closest to the ground or up 7000 feet, the weight of air is thinner upwards and denser on the ground. We breathe easier on the ground. The helicopter performs better with wind. Depending on the direction of the wind will increase the take-off distance (tailwind) or the wind will shorten the take-off distance (headwind).

As the helicopter enables flying, there is something more subtle that I hope comes across with these pilots who fly in Greenland, and this point is important for how to approach the following chapter and the other chapters. The pilot weather stories recounted invoke the physics of weather. When they say, "As the humid, warm air moves over the cold surface of the sea ice, the warm air cools when it rises over the cold air, and as a result, the air becomes visible in forms of fog or low clouds," they are also saying they might not be able to see what's in front of them, but can maybe fly at lower altitudes or not at all. Along with the pilots, what this research platform is saying is that the machine enables the pilots to fly in a certain technique for scanning but is highly dependent on what the atmosphere affords (note Gibson's affordances, see tab: Perceptions) in what the pilots see with their eyes at that very moment that they fly - the pilot's eye in scanning the surroundings in both the surface and above. The weather, as is the case in Greenland, is not the same as it was yesterday, and when perceiving the weather, what is 'available' in affordances for the pilot to scan is in that precise moment they are flying, whether in the atmosphere, on approach, right before takeoff, when landing or during the entire flight. What is 'available' for the pilot in the air or on the surface could change from hour to hour, day to day.

As pilots scan, they are perceiving what is visible with the current conditions. In other words, they perceive what is 'available' from the affordances of the machine and the surroundings, both on surfaces and above.

I refer to Gibson's affordances from his ecological approach to visual perception, but it was his aviation studies that drew me in. Gibson's explanation of distance perception involved a reconceptualization of the nature of environmental space that animals visually perceive. This particular revision was one example derived from Gibson's aviation studies. What Gibson called the visual world (1950a p. 6) was where he considered "the possibility that there is literally no such thing as a perception of space without the perception of a continuous background surface." This ground theory of Gibson's was to distinguish from his air theory, thich he noted was from an older approach. Gibson's revision of the visual world came out of his aviation studies in 1944 and 1947 (1987, p. 194), which reconsidered what is in the background of objects. According to Gibson (1986, p.148), the 'space' of the airplane pilot above in the air was determined where he/she was by the ground and the horizon of the earth, not by the air the pilot flies in. But that was from classified studies published in 1947. Gibson's ground theory is really about surfaces that are in the background giving some form, which Gibson calls layout. A layout has a place and objects, with features from which the observer perceives. But not in a two-dimensional space and not in depth perception. This is when Gibson's work gets interesting. For Gibson, this layout involves self-perception and is continually changing as the observer moves (Gibson 1986, p. 148), and from this angle, a view from the top or the side gives some distance from the object.

Gibson’s visual perception of the environment and his ecological approach are the guiding pathways, the conduit to describe what pilots see when they scan their surroundings, the air, the light – the atmosphere. Yet, it is with a motion in the present moment, what is available at the moment that affords the pilots bypassing a near accident or mechanical failure.