Congratulations on scheduling your discovery flight with Merlin
Flight Training!
For many commercial and private pilots, including myself, the
passion for aviation started at one
key point. Many instances being your very first discovery flight.
In this video we're going to
cover some key features of the airplane you'll be flying,
including the airplane's powerplant
systems and flight controls, so you can spend all your time in
the airplane enjoying the views and
the feeling the controls for yourself. I have no doubt that this
airplane will itself solidify that
lifelong desire for you to take the controls yourself and take
flight. Here we have a Direct
Fly Alto 912 Tango Golf, a more than capable single-engine
low-wing light sport piston engine
airplane completed with a tricycle landing gear, dual control
stick, and two-seat cockpit. Up front we
have a Woodcomp S.R.O. Composite Triple Blade Ground Adjustable
Propeller. The prop converts your engine's
crank horsepower into forward thrust to provide that much needed
airflow over the wings and flight
controls for lift and controllability. Attached to the prop
under the Alto's cowling contains a
Rotax 912 ULS engine, a piston engine making 100 horsepower to
the crankshaft. The tricycle style
landing gear is one of the simplest and most reliable in the
industry. It contains three wheels,
the nose gear, the left and the right mains. This is known as
fixed gear as it remains in one place
and does not have all the extra components that make them
retractable. This makes the landing gear
more reliable and easier to maintain. The Alto's flight controls
consist of a standard aileron,
elevator, and rudder flight control. Your ailerons provide your
lateral control and are actuated by
the control stick left and right providing you with left and
right banking capacity.
Your elevators provide longitudinal control. Longitudinal
control is also actuated by the
control stick forward and aft providing you with your desired
pitch attitude.
Rudder control is actuated by pedals of the foot control
interconnected by your cable system.
Your rudder provides what we call yaw about the vertical axis of
the airplane
and while paired with your aileron inputs allow you to fly in
coordinated and smooth manner.
Lastly your flaps are used for landing providing higher lift and
higher drag thus slowing the
airplane and decreasing stalling speed. For now let's combine
everything we've learned about the
aircraft flight controls and how they're connected to the
control stick and rudder inside the cockpit.
Here we have our control stick for the control stick. The
movement of your ailerons and elevators
are transferred through a system of push and pull rods to the
ailerons and elevators.
Aft on the control stick raises the elevator causing the nose to
pitch up.
Forward on the control stick lowers the nose, left on the
control stick raises the left aileron and
lowers the right and right on the control stick raises the right
aileron and lowers the left
aileron. Well here are your rudder pedals your left and your
right rudder pedal in tandem with
the deflection of your ailerons provide you with coordinated
flight as spoken of earlier.
Now let's touch on a few of your important instruments inside
the cockpit so you can be
familiar with what they're telling you and when and how to
respond to them.
The magnetic compass. Here's your trusty magnetic compass. This
will provide you with
your current magnetic heading based off a 360 degree system.
North being 360 degrees,
east being 090, south being 180 and westward being 270. The
magnetic compass is the only steam
or analog instrument we have in this airplane being there for
redundancy. The rest of the flight
instruments are provided in unison by this beautiful what we
call glass cockpit the Dynon
SkyView Touch. Nextly we have our heading indicator. This
provides you with your magnetic
heading just as the magnetic compass would but it relies on
completely a separate ADAHRS system.
Also we have our airspeed indicator here. Our airspeed
indicator provides you with your air
speed. It provides information such as your ram air pressure
from your pitot tube and the static
pressure from your static port. This is known as the pitot
static system. The airspeed indicator
provides you with the KIAS knots indicated airspeed in which
all your V-speeds are based on.
Nextly we have our altimeter system over here. After inputting
the proper altimeter setting
from our weather source, the altimeter gives you your altitude
in MSL or mean sea level. We will
use the altimeter in flight to verify that we are flying at a
high enough altitude for safety,
practice and standard traffic pattern altitude while in the
airport's vicinity. The vertical
speed indicator is very similar to the altimeter and the VSI
gives you your climb rate. It runs off
a tape design giving you your rate of climb and your rate of
descent in unison. Your attitude
indicator lastly but most certainly not least have this section
right here. Now remember how we
talked about our flight controls. This instrument provides you
with feedback information from all
your flight control inputs including your pitch attitude,
elevator inputs, your bank angle,
aileron inputs and lastly our little ball which we call the
inclinometer right up there.
That will help you stay coordinated. Remember we're going to be
saying things like step on the
ball. So if the ball here is on the right side we're going to be
stepping on our right rudder
and getting that ball all the way lined up in the center there
and that'll keep us nice and
coordinated as we fly around. Now that you have a solid
knowledge foundation of our aircraft,
its systems, flight controls and instruments, let's get up in
the air so you can experience
the best part of them the way they feel. Now let's pre-flight
and take flight.