2. Air, motion, and measurement

Use conversion factors as ratios equal to 1, then cancel units step by step. Practice chain conversions such as feet to meters, knots to meters per second, and inches of mercury to hectopascals without relying on memorized shortcuts.

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Use what you learned in the previous lesson to solve real-world problems.

Read measured values with the right level of detail for the instrument or drawing. Decide when extra digits are meaningful, when to round, and how uncertainty affects simple aircraft measurements.

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Distinguish where something is, how far it traveled, and the straight-line change from start to finish. Work through aircraft examples where taxi distance, runway position, and displacement are not the same idea.

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Compare speed as “how fast” with velocity as speed plus direction. Read simple motion statements using miles per hour, meters per second, knots, climb rate, and descent rate.

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Reason through acceleration as any change in velocity, including speeding up, slowing down, or changing direction. Identify the sign and direction of acceleration in simple takeoff, braking, climb, and turn descriptions without calculating forces.

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Use the aircraft’s longitudinal, lateral, and vertical axes to describe orientation. Match pitch, roll, and yaw to the axis each rotation happens around on a simple airplane sketch.

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Read position and motion using Earth-based directions such as north, east, altitude, heading, and track. Compare a nose direction with the actual path over the ground when wind or drift is present.

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Choose the frame of reference that makes a motion statement clear: Earth-fixed, body-fixed, or air-relative. Reword the same situation from a pilot’s view, a ground observer’s view, and the airflow’s view.

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Locate points on an aircraft using fuselage station, buttline, and waterline measurements. Read simple maintenance-style coordinates to tell whether a point is forward or aft, left or right, and above or below a reference datum.

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Interpret top, side, and front views of an aircraft as different projections of the same shape. Match wingspan, length, height, chord, and tail position across the views without mistaking drawing direction for flight direction.

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Use nautical miles, knots, feet, and feet per minute in common aviation statements. Convert between nautical miles per hour and knots, and distinguish forward speed from rate of climb or descent.

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Compare motion through the air with motion over the ground. Use headwind, tailwind, and crosswind examples to reason why airspeed and groundspeed can differ even when the aircraft’s power setting is unchanged.

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Recognize relative wind as the airflow direction an aircraft experiences, opposite its motion through the air. Use arrows on simple diagrams to connect aircraft motion, incoming flow, and the language used to describe airflow around wings and bodies.

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Use what you learned in the previous lesson to solve real-world problems.

Treat pressure as a normal push per unit area and connect it to common aviation units. Convert and compare pascals, kilopascals, pounds per square inch, inches of mercury, and hectopascals in instrument and weather-style readings.

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Use what you learned in the previous lesson to solve real-world problems.

Distinguish absolute pressure from gauge pressure and differential pressure. Read examples where an instrument compares pressure to a vacuum, outside air, or another location in the aircraft system.

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Convert among Celsius, Fahrenheit, and Kelvin while keeping absolute temperature separate from everyday temperature readings. Use Kelvin when a calculation depends on temperature measured from absolute zero.

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Use what you learned in the previous lesson to solve real-world problems.

Calculate density as mass per unit volume and read density units such as kg/m³, slugs/ft³, and lbm/ft³. Reason qualitatively about dense and thin air without using altitude tables.

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Use what you learned in the previous lesson to solve real-world problems.

Use the ideal gas relation, p = ρRT, as a compact link between pressure, density, and absolute temperature for dry air. Predict which quantity rises or falls when the other two are held fixed in simple aeronautics examples.

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Use what you learned in the previous lesson to solve real-world problems.

Review this chapter with practice based on your mistakes.