Situational awareness is more than knowing where you are; it means knowing how the flight’s history affects its future.

If you had a crystal ball and could “see” ahead in your flight, you would have the ultimate tool for situational awareness because the crystal ball could let you see the consequences of your decisions and any unforeseen effects from factors that may have changed. It could tell you that the holding pattern early in your flight was going to eat dangerously into your fuel reserves or that the changing weather would go below minimums at the destination. Unfortunately, the FAA would never certify such a device, particularly for IFR, so we have to resort to more human processes to make decisions. …