FLIGHT CONTROLS
Flight instruments are essential for pilots because as they
fly through the air, visibility is not as comparable to that of a driver in a
car that navigates through different routes on land. He needs (the pilot) to
use those flight instruments to communicate with his sight, memory and the
control tower by reading and paying attention to them. The flight instruments also
aids to know your specific location in combination with the radar system.
The six basic flight instruments the pilot’s concentration
are focused on are are demarcated In the centre, in the cockpit. The first
instrument is:
The Airspeed indicator: The airspeed indicator is one of the
basic and fundamental instrument. It’s synonymous to the car speedometer. It’s
calibrated in knots. It tells us how fast the aircraft is moving through the
air.
The Altitude Indicator: This is another important basic flight instrument. It tells us the direct indication of pitch and bank. Pitch is the action of lifting the airplane nose upward and downward. As bank is either to the right or left, Pitch is either up or down. Looking at the top of the altitude indicator is a small triangle orange in color pointing to calibrated white lines that signifies the bank indicator. Calibrated as 10 degree, 20 degrees, 30 degrees and lastly 60 degrees of bank. There is a large orange triangle in the middle of the altitude indicator. It show the level of pitch up or down.
The Altimeter: This is another flight instrument that indicates how high we are flying through the air. Its reads like a clock (analogue indicator) but in some modernized and sophisticated aircraft, the altimeter is digital (showing discrete values). The small hand points to thousands of feet whereas the long hand points to hundreds of feet in an analogue type altimeter indicator.
The Turn Cordinator: The turn coordinator is another basic flight instrument used to evaluate the quality of turns. It shows two parts of indication, the left and right and also the centre with a small ball which acts based on centrifugal force. If the centrifugal force is pointing to the left, the ball will slide to the left, if the centrifugal force is pointing to the right, the ball will slide to the right the ball only rest in the middle of its demarcation in a straight and level flight. The rudder controls the quality of the turn in the sense that when you push on the right rudder that ball slides the right direction and the airplane turns right. The ball tells you what needs to be done with the rudder to stay a coordinated flight. This flight instrument doesn’t give you the direct indication of bank. It only tell you the plane is physically changing heading in a particular degree of bank close to the turn coordinator is the heading indicator.
The Heading Indicator: This is another basic instrument that
tells us the direction we are flying into the air. Its analogue form has
calibrated numbers. But most modernized airplanes has its numbers in digital
form. It’s calibrated in 9, 12, 15 degrees of calibration. all you have to do
is add a zero to the numbers. Our main headings are north, south, east and
west. The north heading is 0 or 360 degrees, east is heading of 90 degrees, the
south is 180 degrees, west is a heading of 270 degrees. Each little white tick
on the heading is 5 degrees.
The Vertical Speed
Indicator: This is another basic flight instrument, it
tells us the rate of climb or descent in a coordinated flight. Its calibration
is in feet per minute. Most sophisticated aircraft has its calibration in
digital form. Other flight instrument includes the:
Tachometer: This instrument indicates how much of
power the engine utilises. The aircraft power is measured in rotations per
minute, the full power is about 2500 rpm basically what is been done with the
throttle in the cockpit. This works like the gas pedal in your car.
The mixture control: This shows how much fuel goes to the
engine. On the ground we set the mixture to rich but as we climb the air gets
thinner so we need to use less fuel otherwise the engine could choke itself as
we compensate for the reduced air density after takeoff, we ensure to make use of less fuel.
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