Feeling aircraft sensations

"Ramapriya" wrote in message
oups.com...
Wanted to ask how easy or natural it gets for pilots to perceive
aircraft positions and movements without actually looking at the
respective indicators.

[...]

Was I just me that was dumb or has anyone else not physically felt
these sensations at the first go?

You cannot fly without your eyes.

Which is not to say there's not useful information coming through your
physical senses. But whether you are looking out the window or at the
instruments on the panel, you need to be able to *see* what is going on,
because kinesthesia isn't a reliable source of aircraft position and
movement. There are too many illusions caused by the characteristics of
flight maneuvering that have no correspondence to movements naturally
experienced by primitive humans.

Now, if you are asking whether it's difficult to fly without instruments,
but with your eyes, no it's not. In something like an Airbus, it might be a
little more complicated but for light planes generally, flights in visual
conditions could all be safely accomplished without any instruments
whatsoever.

Altitude, airspeed, and power settings are the key performance indicators on
the instrument panel. Altitude is the hardest to estimate, but it's not too
hard to tell the difference between "pattern altitude" and "cruise
altitude". The main reason for needing the altimeter is to comply with
various regulatory issues; either to cruise at an appropriate altitude, or
to avoid (or remain inside) particular airspace.

Airspeed is less difficult than altitude. You get plenty of feedback from
the noise the air makes as it goes past the airframe, and from the feel of
the flight controls (they get more difficult to move as airspeed increases).
In addition, as long as you can maintain a specific power setting and can
tell your pitch attitude, you can pretty fairly predict what your actual
airspeed is going to be.

Power settings are the easiest, at least in a fixed-pitch prop airplane.
You just listen to the airplane. Just as you don't need a tachometer in
your car to tell you when to shift, you don't need a tachometer in the
airplane to tell you if you've got the power set in the right ballpark.
Things get more complicated with a constant speed prop, because two
different controls affect the actual power setting, but only one produces a
change in the engine RPM. But even there, a pilot can estimate the throttle
setting just by the position of the throttle control, and then use the RPM
control to ensure the correct power setting.

It's not really clear to me which question you're asking. But instruments
are by no means critical for visual flight. However, one absolute cannot
trust one's non-visual perception for the purpose of controlling an
airplane. Hopefully one of those two answers addresses whatever question
you're actually asking.

Pete