When you are learning to fly, your flight instructor will teach you about two very important flight instruments that will serve you well in the 3D world of flight. One of hardest concepts for new pilots to deal with is the three-dimensional world of flight. Unlike cars that move about on one axis, airplanes move about on three. Understanding how the aircraft is situated in this triple-axis world means understanding the Attitude Indicator and the Turn Coordinator.

The Attitude Indicator

The primary instrument that shows the pilot how the airplane is moving through space is the Attitude Indicator. This is one of the first instruments a student pilot learns when he begins his flight training. The Attitude Indicator is usually about three inches in diameter and basically consists of little airplane wings relative to a line called "the horizon."

This relationship of wings to horizon shows the pilot if the airplane is climbing with its nose above the horizon, or descending with its nose pointed below the horizon. The instrument was once called an "Artificial Horizon," but this term is no longer used in the flight training industry.

The Turn Coordinator

Understanding the needle and the ball of the "Turn Coordinator" is another flight training concept new pilots must learn. The best way to understand the information you receive from the Turn Coordinator is to to imagine you are driving a racecar at the Indy 500. Notice the track is level in the straightaway, but in the turns the track is banked. Imagine you have a hot cup of coffee on the dashboard and it is filled to the very brim. As you travel down the straightaway at 150 miles per hour the coffee stays in the cup. But going into a left turn the coffee will spill towards the inside of the track if you go too slow, and if you go to fast, the coffee will spill to the outside of the track.

Spilling coffee to the inside is called a "Slip" and spilling to the outside is called a "Skid." In airplanes slips and skids are indicated oddly enough by an instrument called a "Slip and Skid" or "Slip and Turn" indicator. This indicator is essentially a little white ball encased in a concave glass tube with a line drawn on each side of the ball. If you have this instrument in your racecar, the ball stays between the lines on the straightaway and falls toward the inside of the track if the car goes to slow in a left turn. Consequently, centrifugal force pushes the ball to the right if you go too fast in that left turn.

Coffee Anyone?

Remember though, the angle of bank on the racetrack is fixed and precise speed control is the only way to keep from spilling coffee in the turns. With airplanes you can change your speed as well as the angle of bank to achieve the desired result, which is to not spill the coffee. So just don't drink coffee when you fly and there is no need to know all this right?

Spilling the coffee means uncoordinated flight in an airplane. That means the aircraft has induced drag due to control surfaces working against each other and drag translates to burning more fuel to get somewhere! Make mine a Starbucks please!

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