Attitude Instrument Flying

hello again and welcome to another fly the wing in flight maneuver video if you're a student or private pilot you've already gotten a small taste of flying by reference to instruments but to prepare for your instrument checkride you'll need at least 40 hours of real or simulated instrument time now in this short video I'll offer a few tips to help jump-start your instrument training using the traditional 6-pack of steam gauges in a single-engine airplane you'll learn to scan the pertinent instruments looking for information from two or more instruments to confirm what the airplane is doing this is called cross-checking then we'll interpret this information and finally control the airplane based on the data we've collected from those instruments how you scan is a personal preference you can utilize the radial cross-check where you look at the attitude indicator than glance from the AI to other instruments or the inverted V which also begins with the AI or you can use the rectangular cross-check which is what I tend to use the rate of your scan will change based on the demands of the flight situation you'll learn what to look for when to look for it and what response to make now you want to be aware of fixation this is a condition where you're so focused on one instrument such as holding altitude that you neglect what's happening with other instruments omission of an instrument from your cross-check is another likely error it's many times the result of fixating on another instrument and emphasis on a single instrument instead of the combination of instruments necessary for attitude information is common during the initial stages of training you want to rely on the instruments that give you the best available information for what you're trying to achieve in the airplane at that moment now we don't have time to cover every possible flight scenario in this video but for example if you're trying to maintain straight and level flight the primary instrument for pitch is going to be your V si followed by your altimeter primary four Bank is the heading indicator and primary for power is your airspeed indicator when we change the flight condition of the airplane well most often use the attitude indicator is a primary instrument to begin and end that change such as in a climb a descent or a turn and then begin to cross-check with other instruments to confirm that we've achieved the desired bank or climb rate well let's get in to assess the skyline now and run through some of these instrument basics it's not going to roll through a lot of these tips about flying under the hood basic attitude instrument flying really quickly this is something we cover a couple one-hour lessons actually but the first thing is to disregard whatever you're feeling when you under the hood from your inner ear what your body's telling you because you're getting wrong indications and as soon as you realize that and trust your instruments the quicker you'll get the grasp of this instrument blind the other thing you want to do is fly with a light grip on the control wheel you don't really want to let go of it but if you can fly with two fingers rather than the GI Joe kungfu grip on the yoke you'll have a better feel for what's going on with the airplane you can fix slight deviations and corrections a lot sooner now remember our gyro instruments are these two the attitude indicator in the heading indicator and they're powered by the vacuum system in the airplane this particular airplane has dual vacuum pumps and annunciators to tell us if one or the other goes out we have a turn coordinator it even says on it that it's DC it's electric so that's indicating our bank from a different power source of course we have the airspeed indicator which is the only instrument uses the pitot system also uses the static system as does the altimeter and the vertical speed indicator now there's two different scenarios in which you're going to be under the hood one is what we're doing right now which is basically static state I'm trying to maintain a heading trying to maintain an altitude 4,500 feet in this instance the first instrument that's going to show me if I'm deviating from this one I'm trying to stay straight and level is going to be the BSI now it's real hard to see on the attitude indicator any minor changes in picture Bank we will begin and end any changes starting with the attitude indicator but right now there's no changes going on we're trying to be steady state straight and level so the PSI is going to show you the first indication of a change in altitude now it's true that it has a lag to it but that's only in terms of the rate if we want to know whether we're climbing 500 or 700 feet per minute we do have to wait a few seconds for it to settle in but any indication that you get above or below zero if it continues it's going to eventually change your altitude so this is the primary instrument for pitch when I'm trying to maintain straight and level flight now if the airplane started to bank one way or the other it's kind of hard to see little tiny changes on the attitude indicator I just kicked it into a little bit of a right bank two or three degrees you can barely see it on the attitude indicator but notice what's going to happen is my headings going to start to change so in a steady state when I'm trying to maintain a straight level condition the first thing that's going to show if I have any Bank it's going to be the heading indicator so if you've got a heavy bug in your airplane to use it Roget you'll see first whether you got any Bank in there from your heading indicator the primary and secondary gets a lot of students confused but main thing you want to know about that is there's what is the best instrument that's going to give me real-time information for what's happening in the airplane now if I wanted to begin a turn right now I can start with the attitude indicator while I'm doing this by scan is continuing I'm not just fixating on one instrument and omitting others so I start a bank here I can start the bank with the attitude indicator and then verify it with the turn coordinator that I have pretty much a standard rate turn going we're over a little bit of terrain now we got a little updraft which is what's kicking up the altitude even though we're in a turn we're still indicating a little bit of a climb and if I wanted to turn to heading three zero zero this is going to be my indication of when to roll out of the turn but for right now I'm maintaining about 15 degrees standard rates are keeping the ball centered going to have to push on the yoke to get it back to 4500 because of that little thermal we got into and as they come around to my heading I can roll out start here by rolling out on the attitude indicator verify that we're wings level on the turn coordinator and then substantiate that fact as well with our heading which is three zero zero pretty much have it back to 4500 I'm having to push little on the yoke probably because of that hilly terrain and the heat of the day building up under so I'm going to reach rim a little bit one thing you learn about flying under the hood it's all about trim small minor Corrections as soon as possible or much better that much larger Corrections much later on if I wanted to start a climb let's do it at this same heading I'm going to start with the attitude indicator bring it up about a dot above the horizon I can verify that that is indeed a climb because the BSI is starting to change and I do have to wait a few seconds for the rate to settle it so I'm going to work it to a while 500 feet per minute I'm going to need about this much back pressure on it and I'll trim for that I think I'll go up to 5,500 feet which about a thousand feet at 500 feet per minute should take me a couple of minutes to get there so now I've changed from straight level flight I'm basically going straight but I'm no longer level so my primary instrument for pitch right now the attitude indicator combined with the vertical speed indicator and I'm just making sure that these things correlate and then secondarily of course the altitude should continue to change as it is having to put a little right rudder in there just to keep it coordinated those left-turning tendencies whatever the formula attitude plus power equals performance so I've got this attitude in there I've got the same amount of power so my performance went down substantially we basically went from about 134 not straight level to about 102 knots over the ground and about 92 knots indicated air speed so we still have a little bit of a tailwind working for us and we'll keep this climb coming five hundred feet per minute to another 300 feet and of course the rule of thumb it's the same as a VFR fly is you want to begin to level off at about 10% of your rate of climb so when the airplane gets to about 50 450 and it start to lower the nose and again when I say slow I mean slow gradually I'm going to initiate that we're in a steady state right now it's a straight-ahead blaim but we're going to change that so we're going to start with our primary instrument for change which is the attitude indicator there's my 5450 I simply put the dot back on the horizon and the climb should stop and verify that with a vsi and as it slowly comes back to settle on zero I'm within about 20 feet by established altitude I can make a small gentle correction for that and because I had the airplane trip for the climb I'm going to have to reach rim it again welcome to flying under the hood and IFR flying it's a constant change and pitch power performance and trimming every step along the way so just a little bit of back pressure there we go and we're back to straight and level flight constant state long as this stays close to zero I'm going to stay close to that altitude as long as my heading stays to what I had it bugged on I'm going to stay at that same heading on straight and level don't be too concerned if some of this seems confusing to you at first that's why we train in practice and even once you do have your instrument rating you're going to find that you have to practice at regular intervals to keep your scan going and stay sharp on instruments have fun fly safely and I'll see you again next time for another fly the wing in flight maneuver video you

Channel: Garry Wing

Views: 196,565

Rating: 4.9221115 out of 5

Keywords: Attitude Instrument Flying, Fly the Wing

Id: yM30m91CMJc

Length: 10min 51sec (651 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 29 2014