The Altimeter and Height Levels on an Airplane

Video Transcript

Among the various instruments that you'll become familiar with when you're training in the aircraft -- one of them is the altimeter. The altimeter is located just to the right of the attitude indicator, and it looks essentially like a clock. It actually has three hands, and the hands represent the altitude in hundreds, and in thousands, and then the real small one that's a little bit hard to see is actually the ten thousand foot mark. The little window that's over here on the side is actually called the Kollsman. I gather that was from the person that actually invented it. But essentially all we have in an altimeter is an aneroid barometer. When the aircraft climbs, our atmospheric pressure usually decreases, and as the pressure decreases it allows our hands on the altimeter to register a climb -- showing that the aircraft is gaining in altitude. And what we would typically be measuring this against is our height above seal level. Now of course we'd also want to be aware -- we want to have our correct altimeter setting because we also use this to also kind of gauge our height above terrain and above obstructions too. So, having the proper altimeter setting is a fairly important aspect of flying, but it's essentially a pretty simple instrument to use once you become familiar with its operation.

Watch these related videos

• 
  The Altimeter and Height Levels on an Airplane

  playlist Views: 366

• 
  How to Use Instruments in an Airplane

  playlist Views: 1,047

• 
  Altitude Awareness in Skydiving

  playlist Views: 872

• 
  Pre-solo and Solo Flights in Aviation School

  playlist Views: 385

• 
  Accessing Gmail with Outlook: Part 1

  playlist Views: 1,719

• 
  How to Do a Power On Stall in an Airplane

  playlist Views: 1,135

Community Members who...

• Favorited this Video
• Rated This Video

Thumbs up or Thumbs down? Be the first to rate this video!

Top Tags