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84 CHAPTER 7. NAVIGATION, AUTOPILOTS, AND FLYING ON INSTRUMENTS
6. Now, if you want to do more than just fly to an airport, hit the NEXT button on the FMS
and repeat the steps above for the next waypoint.
There is a back arrow to erase mistakes, as well as VOR, NDB, FIX, and LAT/LON
buttons to enter those types of destinations. The PREV and NEXT buttons will cycle
through the various waypoints in your plan, and the LD and SA buttons will load or save
flight plans if you would like to use them again.
7. Once you have entered the plan into the FMS, take off and set the SOURCE switch for the
HSI (found near the left edge of the panel) to GPS so that the HSI is getting data from the
GPS (rather than the NAV 1 or NAV 2 radios).
8. Move the FLIGHT DIR switch to AUTO so the autopilot servos are actually running, and
hit the LOC autopilot button (at the top of the panel) to follow the HSI lateral guidance
(which was just set to get data from the GPS), with the servos actively flying the plane. If
you entered an altitude into the FMS, you’ll also need to hit the VNAV autopilot button to
track the entered altitude.
9. Sit back and let the autopilot take you to your destination.
7.4 Flying on Instruments
Though for a long time considered impossible in aviation circles, the ability to fly an aircraft through
a large cloud or fog bank relying completely on the aircraft’s instruments was made possible in
the 1920s. Before then, nearly everyone that attempted this had become just another part of the
wreckage, smoldering in a field. Now it is commonplace for even relatively inexperienced pilots to fly
long distances in clouds. An instrument rating only requires 125 hours total flight time—although
it would certainly not be wise for a 130- or 140-hour pilot to attempt an instrument approach in
a 200 ft overcast with 1/2 mile visibility or to take off on a foggy day. Modern gyroscope-based
instrumentation and continual training make it possible to safely fly with reference to only the
instrument panel.
7.4.1 Keeping a Sense of Balance
To begin a discussion on instrument flight, we must first discuss why it is so difficult. It isn’t that the
principles behind flying on instruments are so difficult or that interpreting what the instruments are
telling you is that difficult. Rather, the difficulty lies in believing what the instruments are saying.
Your body had developed a system of balance and equilibrium that has evolved in humans over
millions of years, and forcing your brain to ignore these signals and to believe what the instruments
are telling you is very difficult. To put it bluntly, in a real aircraft, your life depends on ignoring
your feelings and senses and flying based solely on the information in front of you.
This is why it’s so difficult. Your sense of balance comes from three sources within your body.
These are, in order of prerogative, your inner ear, your eyes, and your sense of touch and even
hearing. You should remember from high school that your inner ear is a series of semi-circular
canals that are filled with fluid. They are positioned in your head in different planes and each is
lined with thousands of small hairs. The root of each hair is connected to your nervous system. As
your body changes position in space, the fluid is moved due to momentum. The resulting bending
of these hairs feeds your brain signals that indicate the orientation of your head in space. This
information is continually updated and corrected by what your eyes are sending your brain as