User Guide

136

Flight Instruction

Finally, fancier airplanes (including the Malibu Mirage,

Navajo Chieftain, and King Air B200 in this release of FLY!), have

an instrument called a Radio Magnetic Indicator, or RMI, that does

all the work for you. Described in greater detail in the “Radio

Flyer” chapters, it has a compass card that’s automatically syn-

chronized with the airplane’s gyrocompass. VOR signals can also

be displayed on the RMI; thus, at a glance you can see your cur-

rent bearing to, and radial from, either VOR or NDB stations.

137

Radio Flyer

Part 1

Glance around the cockpit of just about any modern gener-

al-aviation aircraft, and the first impression is “there are sure a lot

of knobs and dials.” As you get around to flying the aircraft, you’ll

soon find that there are relatively few instruments you’ll focus on

for guidance in actually maneuvering the machine. Many of the

other instruments, and a lot of the remaining panel “real estate,”

is taken up with the ship’s radio installation - the electronics you’ll

be using both to communicate with ground controllers and other

airplanes, and to locate your position and find your way through

the sky.

Indeed, it’s modern radio equipment that has made even

light general aviation aircraft so useful and practical. Originally,

the radio equipment required for instrument navigation - i.e., find-

ing your way by some means other than looking out the window

at the ground - was so large, heavy, and expensive that only air-

liners and the largest multi-engine corporate aircraft could use it.

Now, with lightweight, transistorized equipment that can be

mounted right in the instrument panel (instead of in big remote

equipment racks), even the lightest single can have navigation

and communication capabilities surpassing those of airliners of

just a few years ago.

Much of today’s radio equipment is somewhat standardized;

while the appearance and some features of different manufactur-

ers’ radios may differ slightly, just about all general aviation radios

are 6

inches wide, so they’ll fit in the standard radio “stack” in

the center of the panel. All the piston-powered aircraft in this ver-

sion of FLY! use the excellent radios from the Bendix-King division

of AlliedSignal, and they all have the same basic installation, even

if some use different indicators. In addition, the Cessna 172R has

room for its entire complement of radios in a single tall “stack,”

while those in the Malibu and Navajo Chieftain are divided into

two shorter ones.

Flight Instruction