Narrative:

[I] was concluding a maintenance flight. I was flying single pilot. Visuals were being conducted to both xxl and xxr. I was assigned heading of 160 and flying very wide downwind. At approximately 5 miles south of the airport; I was advised I would be following traffic at 11 o'clock and to report in sight. I saw what appeared to be the 11 o'clock traffic and reported same. ATC told me to follow that traffic and I was cleared approach for xxl. I normally use the FMS heading command so I entered 90 degrees left to setup a base leg heading. The heading bug continued to spin around to 270 degrees so I went heads down to correct. Then ATC says to fly heading of 180 because I was turning inside the traffic. I repeated the ATC heading and stated that the traffic was in sight. I then resumed correcting the heading through the FMS which took about 20 seconds. Then ATC stated; 'approach cancelled. Fly heading 180.' at that point I de-selected FMS heading command mode and selected manual heading mode which resulted in a successful heading of 180. Once clear of the traffic I was then cleared again for the visual approach which was completed without further incident.several problems here. First there was traffic on the parallel runway which is easy to mistake considering the dusk light conditions. Second; the controller was calling out the traffic to follow that was at least 15 miles south of my position making it difficult to identify in any light or atmospheric conditions. Third; the combo of a single pilot operation combined with a misbehaving FMS command system. In the future I will ask ATC to call my base during visuals.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: CE560 pilot; on a visual approach; went heads down to use FMS heading command and turned inside traffic. Pilot followed ATC headings to clear traffic and landed without further incident.

Narrative: [I] was concluding a maintenance flight. I was flying single pilot. Visuals were being conducted to both XXL and XXR. I was assigned heading of 160 and flying very wide downwind. At approximately 5 miles south of the airport; I was advised I would be following traffic at 11 o'clock and to report in sight. I saw what appeared to be the 11 o'clock traffic and reported same. ATC told me to follow that traffic and I was cleared approach for XXL. I normally use the FMS heading command so I entered 90 degrees left to setup a base leg heading. The heading bug continued to spin around to 270 degrees so I went heads down to correct. Then ATC says to fly heading of 180 because I was turning inside the traffic. I repeated the ATC heading and stated that the traffic was in sight. I then resumed correcting the heading through the FMS which took about 20 seconds. Then ATC stated; 'Approach cancelled. Fly heading 180.' At that point I de-selected FMS Heading Command mode and selected Manual HDG mode which resulted in a successful heading of 180. Once clear of the traffic I was then cleared again for the visual approach which was completed without further incident.Several problems here. First there was traffic on the parallel runway which is easy to mistake considering the dusk light conditions. Second; the Controller was calling out the traffic to follow that was at least 15 miles south of my position making it difficult to identify in any light or atmospheric conditions. Third; the combo of a single pilot operation combined with a misbehaving FMS command system. In the future I will ask ATC to call my base during visuals.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of July 2013 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.