Straight and Level (9th January 2006)

Lesson number three was Straight and Level, turned out to be a relatively simple and straight forward lesson, which helps when you're just starting out!

We started off with the forces acting on an aircraft in flight, which are lift, thrust, weight, and drag. When all four forces are equal, the plane is said to be in equilibriam (or straight and level). The instructor quickly went over the tailplane, which is used to balance out any residual pitching movements that may take place. Following that part of the theory, I learnt about straight and level at different airspeeds.

Once we got to cruise altitude in the area, I learnt how to attain straight and level from the climb, and there is a useful mnemonic 'APT' which stands for attitude power and trim, so you carry out those tasks in that order. Generally attitude and power can be carries out in relatively short sucession, however trim has to be done a little later on once the planes attitude and airspeed has settled down. My next exercise was maintaining straight and level flight, which is obviously simple except when a large gust of wind came and kicked the tail out to the side, meaning you would have to correct it. Following that was attaining straight and level from the descent, which used the same 'APT' mneumonic of attitude, power, and trim. Last of all was regaining altitude, so if you want a small altitude change , no extra power is required as you just put in more elevator, while larger changes require more or less thottle.