This article is about yaw, pitch, and roll as symmetry axes of an aircraft. For meaning in mechanics, see Moment of inertia § Principal axes. For Euler angles with the same names, see Euler angles § Tait–Bryan angles.
The position of all three axes, with the right-hand rule for describing the angle of its rotations
An aircraft in flight is free to rotate in three dimensions: yaw, nose left or right about an axis running up and down; pitch, nose up or down about an axis running from wing to wing; and roll, rotation about an axis running from nose to tail. The axes are alternatively designated as vertical, lateral (or transverse), and longitudinal respectively. These axes move with the vehicle and rotate relative to the Earth along with the craft. These definitions were analogously applied to spacecraft when the first crewed spacecraft were designed in the late 1950s.
These rotations are produced by torques (or moments) about the principal axes. On an aircraft, these are intentionally produced by means of moving control surfaces, which vary the distribution of the net aerodynamic force about the vehicle's center of gravity. Elevators (moving flaps on the horizontal tail) produce pitch, a rudder on the vertical tail produces yaw, and ailerons (flaps on the wings that move in opposing directions) produce roll. On a spacecraft, the movements are usually produced by a reaction control system consisting of small rocket thrusters used to apply asymmetrical thrust on the vehicle.
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the aircraft center of gravity. These axes are related to the principalaxes of inertia, but are not the same. They are geometrical symmetry axes, regardless...
Principal axis may refer to: Principal axis (crystallography) Principal axis (mechanics) Principal axis theorem Aircraftprincipalaxes One of the two...
tail; see Anatomical terms of location § Axes In aviation, nose to tail of a plane; see Aircraftprincipalaxes § Longitudinal axis (roll) In geography...
rotation about the side-to-side axis Pitch (aviation), one of the aircraftprincipalaxes of rotation (nose-up or nose-down angle measured from horizontal...
translation in three perpendicular axes, combined with changes in orientation through rotation about three perpendicular axes, often termed yaw (normal axis)...
Yaw (aviation), one of the aircraftprincipalaxes of rotation, describing motion about the vertical axis of an aircraft (nose-left or nose-right angle...
rotation with respect to the three aircraft'sprincipalaxes about its center of gravity, known as roll, pitch and yaw. Aircraft engineers develop control systems...
the longitudinal axis Roll (aviation), one of the aircraftprincipalaxes of rotation of an aircraft (angle of tilt to the left or right measured from...
relative wind. Air data boom, measures angle of attack Advance ratio Aircraftprincipalaxes Angle of sideslip Bernoulli's principle Drag equation Küssner effect...
related to the tangent bundle. Aircraft maneuvers can be expressed in terms of the moving frame (Aircraftprincipalaxes) when described by the pilot....
direction for wind axes. In other words, wind axes are not principalaxes (the mass is not distributed symmetrically about the yaw and roll axes). Consider the...
with a set of mutually perpendicular principalaxes for which this matrix is diagonal and torques around the axes act independently of each other. In mechanical...
(rotations about the axes xyz of the original coordinate system, which is assumed to remain motionless), or intrinsic (rotations about the axes of the rotating...
rotation, e.g. a translation. Rotations around the x, y and z axes are called principal rotations. Rotation around any axis can be performed by taking...
first and third axes are overlapping. The general problem of decomposing a rotation into three composed movements about intrinsic axes was studied by P...
Fújiàn Jiàn), named after Fujian province, is the third aircraft carrier of the Chinese aircraft carrier programme and the first of the Type 003 class (NATO/OSD...
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World War I, the predecessor to the Argentine Air Force received various aircraft from France and Italy. In 1922, the Escuela Militar de Aviación was temporarily...
military use by using wood as the principal building material. The substitution of wood resulted in a heavier but quieter aircraft, because the wood absorbed...
accelerometer, gyro, and magnetometer per axis for each of the three principalaxes: pitch, roll and yaw. IMUs are often incorporated into Inertial Navigation...
February 28, 2015. Retrieved February 28, 2015. "Italy's Blue Panorama axes Conviasa lease over unpaid debts". Ch-aviation.com. Retrieved July 28, 2014...
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