Flight Instrument Essentials

Flight Instrument Essentials, Learn the essential elements of aircraft instrumentation.

Aircraft instrumentation provides information about our position, orientation, engine status, system status, and various flight parameters. They help us maintain aircraft control and situational awareness.  In particular, the Flight Instruments are the instruments we use to monitor the flight state of the aircraft. They consist of seven instruments indicating parameters of interest such as airspeed, altitude, heading, and so on.  In order to use the instruments effectively, it’s sometimes necessary to know a little bit about how they work.  This is where Flight Instruments Essentials comes in.

In Flight Instrument Essentials, we’ll have a detailed look at how the flight instruments work, including physical principles, power sources, and display interpretation.  We’ll look at the pitot-static system and the instruments it supports (altimeter, airspeed indicator, and vertical speed indicator).  Then we’ll look at gyroscopes and the gyroscopic instruments (directional gyro, attitude indicator, turn indicator, and turn coordinator).  Finally, we’ll look at independent instruments, including the inclinometer and the magnetic compass.

The course includes 13 videos, a comprehensive set of course-notes to support the videos, a workbook with an answer key for your practice, four quizzes for you to assess your progress, and a final exam.

At the end of the course, you’ll know the inner workings, display operation, and interpretation of the flight instruments.  This will provide you with a foundation for future studies covering combined instrument use in flight operations as well as recognizing and managing malfunctions.