The cockpit looks pretty confusing when you look at it, but really most of those gauges are pretty easy to use. I have made a simple page going into the 6 main gauges, and hopefully this page should clear a few things up. It doesn't take brains to work out what I have done, for each of the six main instrements i gave it a number, find its description about it down there next to its number. Of corce this is the panel for cessena, not a boeing 747. So is this page useless if your trying to fly a boeing 747, NO! All the aircarft in flight simulator will have most of these gauges(if not all of them), the gauges just look different.

    We have an istrment panel so that we can accurately find out information about our aircraft, such as the speed it is going at. It also helps us to navigate by using the 3 instrments on the far right, I wont go into any details on those instrments just yet, that takes a lot of explanation. There are a few gauges which are related ot the engine, and you they certainly are not greatly important. Apart from the tachometer, which tells you the RPM  of the engine. Some things in the cockpit are not gauges such as the flaps and the fuel mixture and the lights. Don't worry, these 6 instrments are probably the most important.

     This is just basically the speed you are moving in the air. -If your clever you might be asking, why does it say I am moving when its windy then? The answer is simple, the speedometer (I will call it that, because that is what it does) measures the speed according to how fast the air is moving around it.

    This is called the artificial horizon. So what does this artificial horizon do? Take a wild guess, it tells you what kind of view you should be getting outside of your window. In the diagram1, it is level, because the aeroplane is level. If you took off and pitched up (Pitched is a stupid name for going up or down), on the artificial horizon it would show that you were going up, and if your clever you’d have worked out if your clever if you go down, it would show that you went down. It’s a pretty important gauge, believe it or not. It also tells you banked (dum name for turning sideways where you lean into the turn), if you banked (turning) sideways, it would show you are banked (turning) sideways. So when you put all this information together (knowing if your pitched (going up or down) and knowing if your banked), you think wow, I can do so much with this! This comes in use full when trying to fly straight and level.

    The altimeter is pretty important didn’t you know! It tells you how high you are from the sea level, NOT THE GROUND THE SEA!!! So don’t get grumpy when you crashed but it, but it said you was 1000 feet high, you was 1000 feet from the height of the sea!

    This piece of equipment is pretty useless. It just tells you how much you are banked, and it allows you to accurately make a 25 degree turn, also called a 2 minuite turn. This is because in 2 minites time you will have turned 360 degrees, provided you turned at a 25 degree amout.

    This is a compass, it tells you the direction which your aircraft is travelling.

    This tells you how quickly you are going down, or up. It does this in hundred feet per minute. The further down the scale it goes, the faster you are descending. And the higher up the scale it goes the faster you are rising. You can get this information from the altimeter by how quickly its main hand goes clockwise or anticlockwise. Its more precise from this piece of equipment.

Pretty straight forward huh? These instrements are truely important.

These buttons, I will call the special buttons. You woundn't find these in a real airoplane. They each do special things.

1. This opens the check list form. From here you can find out the normal flying operations.
2. This opens the ATC (Air Traffic Control) box.
3. This opens up the map window. Very usefull for proffesional flying!
4. This opens up the radio stack
5. This shows you the gps, much like the map.
6. This opens out the airoplanes extra thing. Usually this is a compass, but it varies.

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