Flight Controls, Axes and Climb

Every movement is around an axis

Pitch is movement around the lateral axis, roll is movement around the longitudinal axis and yaw is movement around the vertical axis.

Remote pilots do not need to become aerodynamic engineers, but they do need to connect stick input, aircraft attitude, power and flight path.

A multirotor drone with its three axes drawn through the centre of gravity: the longitudinal axis (red, nose to tail), the lateral axis (green, left to right) and the vertical or normal axis (blue, top to bottom). The drone rolls about the longitudinal axis (tilting left and right), then pitches about the lateral axis (nose up and down), then yaws about the vertical axis (nose turns left and right without tilting), then does all three together. The axes are fixed to the drone and move with it.

Read the Flight controls and the three axes transcript

Power changes vertical and horizontal performance

Increasing power may increase climb, speed or both depending on the aircraft type and attitude. Reducing power may increase descent or reduce speed.

Angle of climb describes steepness over the ground. Rate of climb describes vertical speed. Wind can change the angle over the ground without changing the aircraft's actual vertical performance.

The speed, distance and time triangle: Distance on top, Speed and Time on the bottom. Time is covered, leaving Distance over Speed, so Time equals Distance divided by Speed. A drone then flies a 5 kilometre leg at 30 kilometres per hour while a timer runs; the answer is revealed: 5 divided by 30 is 0.167 hours, which is 10 minutes. Units must be consistent: kilometres per hour with hours and kilometres.

Skid, slip and trim are control quality topics

Skid and slip describe unbalanced flight. Trim controls reduce the force or input needed to hold an attitude. Even when automation hides these effects, the pilot should recognise poor control behaviour.

Practice Questions