In this video I’m going to talk about some of the common terminology you
may hear as a student pilot during your flight training or a flying
instructor will use all the time.
Hey how’s it going.
my name is Jane.
I’m a flying instructor, charter pilot and skydiving jump pilot in Australia.
This is almost the end of 2020, hang in there everyone.
So I’m sure that people will agree that learning flying is not easy
and having English as a second language makes it even hard.
I was an International student when I learn flying, is definitely a big learning
curve not only for physically flying the plane but also in communication.
However even for those students who are native in English, that doesn’t
mean that they are automatically able to understand all the terminologies
used by flying instructors and pilots.
Aviation English is actually a new language for everyone and you have to
learn it to understand everything that people talk about in-flight or on the
ground when you’re learning theory.
So let’s talk about the five most common terms you will hear or feedback
you will receive as a student pilot.
Number 1 attitude
no I’m not talking about your personality.
Attitude is the relationship between the price and that you can see what
you’re looking out from the window and the dashboard of aircraft or the
engine cowling if you’re able to see it.
Instructor will use this term attitude to describe the The current state
of the aircraft such as straight and level, climbing, descending and turning.
If you imagine the window of the aircraft is just like
playing a flight simulator game.
The attitude is the certain picture that you want to maintain.
For example, in a straight and level attitude you want to maintain
your pictures like the horizon is parallel with the dashboard of your
aircraft and also you will have a four fingers in between that gap and
that is a straight and level attitude.
A climbing attitude is that the gap between the horizon and the dashboard
is reduced or even at the same level.
For descending attitude, you probably can guess it now, the gap between
the horizon and the dashboard will be more than four fingers, which is
more than straight and level attitude.
If your attitude is showing that the horizon is no longer parallel
with the dashboard of your aircraft, there is an angle there.
it means that your aircraft is turning.
So in real life during Flight Training, you may probably hear the instructor
will say check your nose attitude or check your aircraft attitude.
The instructor is trying to remind you to check if you are holding a constant
attitude, mainly because you probably make a mistake of not maintaining level
flight or you are not maintaining a certain heading or reference point.
That lead to number 2 reference point
This term reference point is not hard to understand, however I do find students
not able to choose a good reference point for them during flight training.
A reference point is any ground features that you can see over
the horizon or nearby that you can reference to to fly a straight line.
You can choose mountains, a lake or some water bodies or a group of houses.
The bigger and the furthest away, the reference point the better.
Because you can see it clearly and also you don’t need to keep changing your
reference points if it’s further away.
Some bad reference point can be using cloud as a reference because
they can move all the time.
Or you’re using small and nearby ground feature, then you will lose
it fairly quickly then you need to re-select a new one too often.
So in real life, your instructor may describe to you what a reference point
is and ask you to choose one every time before maneuvering the aircraft.
Later on down the road during your Flight Training if your instructor is asking
you do you have a reference point, 90% of the time is that you’re not holding a
constant heading because you’re drifting away from the heading or direction
that you are supposed to be traveling.
Number 3 trim
Trim is one of the auxiliary control of the aircraft.
In simple term, It is used to release the pressure of the flight
control and the aircraft will hold a certain attitude for you.
For example, when you are trying to climb your aircraft, you are pulling back onto the
flight control inside the cockpit, and you will definitely feel back pressure
as a feedback from your flight control.
For a prolong climbing, it will be tiring.
so that’s why trim is there to help you to release that back pressure and able
to hold the climbing attitude, then you can just hands-free and keep climbing.
In real life you may hear the instructor will say are you
trim or is your aircraft trim.
what it means that the instructor is checking on you to see if you’re actually
utilizing the trim properly to reduce your workload as a pilot to fly the plane.
Number 4.
VFR, IFR, VMC, IMC.
These are technically for different terms however they are
always associate with each other.
VFR is visual flight rules and IFR is instrument flight rules.
VMC is visual meteorological condition which is for VFR flying and IMC is
instrument meteorological condition, of course it is for IFR flying.
During the whole time of your flight training for your recreational
pilot license and private pilot license you are training under VFR.
Then you should also meet all the VMC - visual meteorological conditions
during your flight training, so you need to learn about that.
After your PPL you are able to start flight training for instrument rating,
which will allow you to do IFR flying.
Number 5 Landing is flat
When you get into the circuit lesson learning how to do the take off
and landing, you might probably receive this feedback at some
point during your Flight Training.
For an aeroplane, we have three wheels, 2 mains and 1 nose.
For a typical landing, you will want the two main gear to touchdown
first, then the nose gear will gently come down as the plane slows down.
When the instructor is describing the landing is a little bit flat,
meanings that main and nose gear almost touchdown at the same time.
That could be because the student is not applying enough back pressure
on landing before touchdown, they are trying to fly straight and level
with idle power, eventually the plane just touched the ground without
slightly higher nose attitude to allow the main gears touch down first.
To improve from this, when you start doing the transitioning from your approach into
a straight and level attitude over the runway for your landing, we call it flare.
When you do the transitioning you allow certain gap between the
aircraft and the ground, and slowly reducing the gap and eventually
touchdown with the main gears first.
What you could do is when you level off over the runway after the
transition, since the aircraft will start losing momentum with idle
power, it will sink and lose height.
once you see the aircraft sink a bit, you will pull back onto your flight control
and raise your nose attitude until the sink stop, then you hold the new nose
attitude until the sink happen again, then apply the back pressure, do this once or
twice, your landing will be less flat.
Number 6 situation awareness
When you are getting competent of flying the aircraft and getting
close to attempting for your flight test of a pilot license.
You may receive a Feedback about your situation awareness.
It can be good or it can be having room for improvement or it just bad.
In a nutshell having situation awareness is basically you are aware of your
surroundings and making safe decision to fly your aircraft and share the same
sky with all the traffic and birds.
Situation awareness can be about the weather consideration, the traffic
consideration, the airport procedure the ATC communication, communication
with the instructor or examiner or other traffic or aircraft handling etc.
this is a very board subject.
At the end of the day the goal is having good situation awareness which in terms
meeting that being safe and efficient.
That's for this video.
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Thank you everyone, I will see you next time.