How to Use Instruments in an Airplane

Part of the Video Series How to Fly an Airplane

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Learn about using instruments in an airplane in this free how to fly video.

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How to Use Instruments in an Airplane
Hi, I'm Dave Pressy with Saint Charles Flying Service on behalf of Expert Village. Let's discuss the airplanes instruments. At first glance an airplanes cockpit can seem very overwhelming with many dials and switches. The number of these instruments varies between airplanes. But there are six basic instruments that all modern aircraft share. They are the airspeed indicator, the attitude indicator, sometimes called the artificial horizon, the altimeter, the vertical speed indicator. Directional gyro and the turn coordinator. These instruments can be grouped together based the way they function. Pedostatic and gyroscopic. The pedostatic instruments are the air speed indicator, which uses the pressure of the on rushing air to determine the speed of the aircraft. The altimeter which is essentially a sensitive barometer determining the altitude above the earth by measuring the change in air pressure as the aircraft climbs or descends. In the vertical speed indicator which works much like the altimeter but simply registers the rate and direction of the altitude change. The gyroscopic instruments function as there name implies. They work by using gyroscopes. Typically the gyroscopes for the attitude indicator and the directional gyro or dg are powered by an engine driven vacuum pump which sucks air out of and through the instruments, spinning the internal gyroscopes. The attitude indicator senses pitch and role while the directional gyro senses only turns. Most airplanes also have a turn coordinator which senses how fast the airplane is banking, how fast it is turning and as well as sensing yaw using an inclinometer. Which is simply a ball in a curve liquid fill tube.

About the Expert

Expert: Dave Pressy has been a flight instructor in the St. Louis Area for over four years, and a pilot for more than seven years. He has accumulated nearly 1200 hours of flight time. Read More