Instruments in Microsoft Flight Simulator

Video Transcript

"DIXON GILLETTE: Welcome back to Expert Village, my name is Dixon Gillette and let's continue our tutorial on Microsoft Flight Simulator X. All right, it's time to get in the cockpit and start talking a little about our primary instruments. Now, three of these instruments are considered to be pitot-static instrument, while the other three are considered to be gyroscopic instruments. Your pitot-static instruments are your altimeter, your airspeed indicator, and your vertical speed indicator. Your altitude indicator, your heading indicator, and your turn coordinator are all instruments based upon gyroscopic principles. Your gyroscopic instruments are essentially designed after small gyroscopes that are spinning rapidly inside your aircraft. You've seen a gyroscope when you essentially use a top. You notice that a top does not like to move in space, it's considered rigidity in space factors. What happens is when the aircraft affects these gyroscopes, information is sent back about that movement, providing you information about your turns, your headings, and your altitude. Your altimeter here is probably going to be one of your most useful instruments in the air. It's going to show you your elevation above sea level. Now, please do not confuse this with above ground level. There is also acronyms for these MSL for Mean Sea level, and AGL for Above Ground Level. Your airspeed indicator is going to give you something called indicated airspeed or IAS. Now, don't confuse this with true speed, because this is not going to show what the actual speed of your aircraft is flying over the ground. It is going to give you information about how fast essentially air is coming at your aircraft; giving you information about speeds to take off, speeds to land at, and various other maneuvers that you're going to need to know based upon this indicated airspeed."