Look at the range of entries here — Page 653, Lesson 754

This is the index of the book — a list of topics and the page numbers where they appear. I want to walk you through what this tells us about the structure of the material we're about to cover, because it's a map of the whole chapter on automatic flight control systems. Look at the range of entries here. We have "Automatic Flight Control System" at page 97, and then a whole cluster of related topics. You'll see "Autopilot Flight Director System (AFDS)" at page 368, "Autoland System" at page 379, and "Autothrottle System" — the entry is cut off, but you can see it's there. These are the three big subsystems we'll be studying: the autopilot, the flight director, and the autothrottle. Notice the page numbers cluster around the 350s to 390s. That tells me this is a substantial section. We have "A Two Axis System" at page 356 and "A Three Axis System" also at page 356 — these are the two configurations of autopilot you'll need to understand. A two-axis system controls pitch and roll, while a three-axis system adds yaw control. We'll get into the details when we reach those pages. You'll also see "Attitude Sensor" at page 354 and "Attitude Reference" at page 366. These are the sensing elements — the gyroscopic instruments that tell the autopilot what the aircraft's attitude is. And "Attitude Director Indicator (ADI)" at page 281 — that's the cockpit display that presents attitude information to you, the pilot. Now look at the operational entries. "Autopilot in Operation" at page 372, "Autopilot Interlocks" at page 359, "Automatic Synchronization" at page 360, and "Automatic Trim (Auto-trim)" at page 361. These are the functional details — how the system engages, how it keeps itself aligned with your commands, and how it trims the aircraft. There's also a set of warning and disengagement entries. "Autopilot Disengage Warnings" at page 374, "A/T Disengagement" at page 393, "A/T Engagement" at page 393, "Autothrottle Disengage Light" at page 396, and "Autothrottle Disengage Switches" at page 395. These are critical for safety — you need to know how the system tells you it's disengaging and how you can manually disengage it. And you'll see "A/T - PMC Operation" at page 393. PMC stands for Performance Management Computer — that's the computer that calculates the optimal thrust settings, and the autothrottle system works with it. Now, the entries starting with "At about 1 foot GA" and "At about 5 feet GA" at page 382 — GA here means Ground Altitude, and these refer to the flare sequence during an autoland. At about 1 foot above the ground, the autopilot begins the flare maneuver, and at about 5 feet, something else happens in that sequence. We'll cover that in detail when we reach the autoland section. Finally, you'll see some entries that aren't about flight control at all — "ATC" at page 317, "ATM Data Link Messages" at page 320, "ATN" at page 328, "ATSU" at page 319, and "Attention Getters" at page 319. ATC is Air Traffic Control, ATM is Air Traffic Management, ATN is the Aeronautical Telecommunications Network, and ATSU is the Air Traffic Services Unit. These are about data link communications — how the aircraft exchanges digital messages with air traffic control. And "Attention Getters" are the visual and aural alerts that draw your attention to a new message. So this index is telling you the full scope: we're going to cover the sensing, the computing, the control surfaces, the engagement and disengagement logic, the warnings, and the integration with data link communications. It's a lot, but we'll take it page by page.