Cockpit

The cockpit is the compartment in an aircraft’s nose where pilots sit to fly the aircraft. It contains the flight controls, engine controls, and instruments that show information about the aircraft. An airliner’s cockpit is also known as the flight deck.

Flight and Engine Controls

Most aircraft have two seats in the cock­pit, side by side. Each seat has its own set of flight controls, so the aircraft can be flown from either one. There is one set of engine controls between the seats.

There are two main flight controls: the control yoke and a pair of foot ped­als. The yoke looks like a car’s steering wheel with the top cut off. Turning the yoke makes a plane bank to one side. Pushing on the yoke makes an airplane’s nose tip down so the plane loses height.

Pulling the yoke back tips a plane’s nose up and makes the plane climb. The pedals control the rudder that is in the tail of an airplane.

Pushing the left pedal turns the plane’s nose to the left. Pushing the right pedal turns the nose to the right.

The main engine control is called the throttle, or power

lever. If the aircraft has more than one engine, there is a power lever for each engine. Moving the power levers changes the amount of fuel supplied to each engine. Giving an engine more fuel makes it run faster and pro­duce more power.

Airbus airliners are unusual because they have no control yokes for steering the plane.

Instead, they are steered by small hand controllers, called side-stick controllers, that look like com­puter game joysticks. There is one on each side of the cockpit.