Basics of Flight

Explore the basics of flight, from takeoff and landing to airplane construction, power fly-by-wire, cabin pressure sensors, IFR, ILS, TCAs, ATC, and emergency equipment.

Explore how aircraft balance weight with lift and thrust against drag using aerofoil shapes and Bernoulli principles, and control roll, pitch, and yaw with ailerons, elevators, and rudders.

Take-off requires generating enough lift within a limited runway, since thrust affects lift. Increase lift by raising the angle of attack or extending slats and flaps to lengthen the aerofoil.

Align with the runway horizontally and vertically using the glide slope and papi lights to stay on approach, then deploy flaps, spoilers, brakes, and reverse thrust to land and stop.

Explore how aircraft safety relies on safe life and failsafe concepts, including material life cycles, scheduled maintenance, redundancy, and gravity-based and hydraulic systems to ensure continual control.

Power electronics keep aircraft systems running by charging two batteries through engine-generated electrical energy, APU, ram air turbine, or ground power unit, with redundancy to handle engine failure.

Explore fly-by-wire systems that replace mechanical linkages with flight computers and signal-driven controls, moving aircraft surfaces like the ailerons, elevators, and rudder for lighter, safer flight.

Explain why planes fly higher to reduce drag and noise, and how bleed air, the pac air conditioning system, and cabin altitude keep the cabin pressurized for safe breathing.

Pilots learn instrument flight rules and how to fly by instruments using the altimeter, pitot tube, heading indicator, and attitude indicator to measure altitude, speed, heading, and attitude.

Learn how the instrument landing system uses localizer and glideslope cues to align with the runway, with the primary flight display and DME supporting a safe approach and autoland options.

Discover how the traffic alert and collision avoidance system uses aircraft transponders to detect nearby traffic, display threat levels, and guide pilots to climb or descend to avoid collisions.

Explore how ATC coordinates clearance, ground control, tower, departure/approach, and area control to keep aircraft safely separated and guide flights from gate to runway and back.

Discover emergencies in flight by examining oxygen masks and oxygen generators delivering at least 15 minutes of breathable air, and the orange flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder.