Plain English Meaning

The cockpit instruments that work by measuring outside air pressure. They use two pressure sources on the aircraft to show how fast you're going, how high you are, and whether you're climbing or descending.

Full Definition

The group of flight instruments that operate by sensing air pressure through the aircraft's pitot tube and static ports. The three primary pitot-static instruments are the airspeed indicator, the altimeter, and the vertical speed indicator. Each uses some combination of ram air pressure (collected by the pitot tube as the aircraft moves forward) and static air pressure (the undisturbed ambient air pressure measured at the static ports) to display airspeed, , or and .