User Guide

Flight Simulator

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120

Microsoft

Tutorial 10: Attitude, Power & Trim

(Step One of the Three-Step Instrument Scan)

During the first nine tutorials, you saw what flying was like when looking at the earth’s horizon

through the windscreen. Suppose I took that away from you. (No, not the windscreen. I mean your

outside visual references.) That’s what would happen if you flew into a cloud. In case you don’t know

this, you can’t see very far when you’re inside a cloud, which means it’s unlikely that you’d be able to

see the earth’s horizon. Without visual references, you’d need to rely on the airplane’s instruments to

maneuver. That’s what the next three tutorials are about.

I plan to show you a three-step process for scanning your flight instruments. It’s the same process I

use in the real world when preparing students for their instrument rating (a license allowing them to

fly inside clouds). If you take the time to master each step, you’ll acquire skills similar to those

possessed by airline pilots. The only difference is that you won’t have 150 to 400 people sitting

behind you trying not to spill coffee on themselves. First, let’s make sure you understand what

instrument scan actually means.

The Scan Plan

When pilots talk about scan, they don’t mean CAT scan (which my cat doesn’t like) or brain scan

(which you’ll need if you dent a lot of airplanes). They’re talking about scanning the six flight

instruments on the airplane’s panel as shown in Figure 1. Scanning is not just moving your head

quick enough to cause your eyes to rattle in their sockets like marbles in a shoebox. It’s a strategic

process of knowing what instrument to look at, when

to look at it, and what to do after you look at it. That’s

why I’ve broken the scan process down into three easy

steps. All three steps are shown below, but I want you

to master one step at a time before combining them

into a smooth, continuous, three-step process.

The Three Steps

Here are the steps in the order they should be

performed:

Step 1: Select attitude, power, and trim.

Step 2: Radial-scan the primary instruments.

Step 3: Trim using the VSI and monitor scan the Big-6 instruments.

Figure 1