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Hi. I'm Dave Pressy with St. Charles Flying Service on behalf of Expert Village. We're
going to talk about the way in which we move an airplane in flight. Unlike your earthbound
vehicle an airplane can move in all three dimensions. This is accomplished by moving
the control surfaces to change airplanes attitude. There are three axis about which an airplane
moves. Pitch, roll and yaw. Pitch is the up and down movement of the nose. We can adjust
the pitch of an aircraft by moving the control yoke forward and backward. Pulling back and
forth in such a way moves the elevator, the horizontal hinge surface on the tail. Move
the control yoke forward to lower the nose. Move it backward to raise it. An upward movement
of the elevator causes the tail to be deflected downward, thus lifting the nose. A downward
movement of the elevator raises the tail, thus lowering the nose. Pilots refer to this
upward down movement of the nose as changing the aircrafts pitch attitude.