Flight Instruments

Flight instruments are aircraft gauges that supply a pilot with critical information about the flight situation of an airplane, such as heigth off the ground, flight speed and attitude readings. Flight instruments are extremely helpful when the weather is bad or a pilots vision is impaired due to mother nature.

Flight instruments may also be referred to the following terms but they all have the same meaning:

• Aircraft Instruments
• Avionics
• Aircraft  Avionics
• Avionic Instruments

Almost every aircraft manufactured uses a common set of flight instruments that supply the pilot critical information needed to determinethe airplanes airspeed, altitude and attitude at the minimum. These are considered the three most critical flight instruments.

The Six Basic Aircraft Instruments

Since the 1930's the six essential flight instruments which have remained to this day are:

• airspeed indicator
• altimeter
• attitude indicator
• directional gyro
• turn and bank
• vertical speed indicator

The T arrangement of Flight Instruments

Airplanes manufactured after the 1950's contain at least four of the aircraft instruments arranged in a common pattern referred to as the T arrangement. The attitude indicator is the flight instrument most used in the top center of the panel with an airspeed indicator on the left side, an altimeter is generally placed to the right and the heading indicator is located under the attitude indicator. The turn coordinator and vertical speed indicator, are most commonly located below  the airspeed indicator and the altimeter. A magnetic compass is placed on top of the instrument panel. Even in late model airplanes the flight instruments are configured like the T arrangement.

Flight Instruments are the only means of vision and geographic coordinates that a pilot may have at times, so it is extremely important that flight Instruments be dead nuts accurate. For this reason flight instruments must be manufactured according to FAA guidelines and each instrument is certified and traceable.

To learn more about the different types of Flight Instruments on an aircraft, please navigate the menu to learn more about each type of Flight Instrument.