Definition
Flying the airplane by reference to the remaining functioning flight instruments after one or more primary instruments have failed or become unreliable. The pilot continues to control attitude, heading, altitude, and airspeed using the instruments still available, while disregarding or covering the failed ones.
Plain English
Flying the airplane when one or more of your main flight instruments has stopped working, using only the instruments you still trust.
Context Anchor
Seen in training and emergency procedures for instrument failures, especially when an attitude indicator, heading indicator, or other cockpit display stops giving useful information.
Derivation
‘Partial’ means ‘part of the whole,’ from Latin pars (‘part’). ‘Panel’ refers to the instrument panel in front of the pilot. Together: operating with only part of the panel available.
Why Pilots Care
Allows continued safe flight and recovery when vacuum or electrical failures remove the primary attitude references, directly reducing the risk of spatial disorientation and loss of control.
Intuition Check
Partial panel does not mean the physical panel is partly removed. It means the pilot no longer has all the normal instrument information available or trustworthy.
Example Sentence 1
When the attitude indicator failed in the clouds, the pilot transitioned to partial panel operations using the turn coordinator and altimeter.
Example Sentence 2
After the vacuum pump failed in clouds, the pilot transitioned to partial panel operations using the turn coordinator to keep the wings level.