Effectively using the secondary flight controls means we first have to learn using the primary ones.

By Jeff Pardo

Like most student pilots, I tended to fly with the type of casual élan my primary instructor described, none too deferentially, with the term "death grip." Then somewhere along the way came my first introduction to that little knurled disk, which is usually just called the trim wheel. Trim? Huh? What’s that? What does it do? How does it work? How is it used?

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