General concepts:

An imaginary flight from Airport 1 to Airport 2 Airport 2 Approaching

Touchdown or landing

Climbing Cruising Descending

Airport 1

Departing In my examples, it is one of the World Travel Arlines' planes, with a tail number (identification number) 21-17. And the Airport is Ferihegy, of Heathrow. At flying we identify directions with degrees. North is 0 (or 360). This is an usual compass in an airplane: 33 => 330 degrees E => 90 degrees etc.

Every airport has got : A short and simple name, for example Ferihegy. (I don't know that this name has changed in conjunction with the renaming of the airport, or not.) When you speak with an airport tower controller you should call him with this name. (for example: Ferihegy Tower, World Travel 21-17 missed approach.). And you can use this name anywhere, where the precise identification isn't required. Such as, when your

flight plan is already in the tower controller's computer, you just have to tell him, you're ready to go: Ferihegy Ground, World Travel 21-17, IFR to Heathrow. You use Heathrow instead of EGLL An identification code called ICAO code. There can be only capital letters or numbers in it. It is used to identify an airport. For example when you're planning your flight, or using the GPS you will fly the plan EGLL LHBP instead of Heathrow Ferihegy One or more runways. Their names are their directions divided by 10. (This number is what you can read from the compass.) e. g. Runway 11. If there are 2 or 3 parallel runways, they're called Left, Right (and Center). e. g. Runway 21 Center is the center one of the three parallel runways. Usually a runway can be approached in both directions. So physically Runway 21 Left and Runway 3 Right are the same. But for flight planning you can handle them as different runways. (Because of the different approach procedure.) Each airplane / flight has got...: A tail number. This is the identification code of the airplane. It is called tail number because this number is painted on every aircraft's tail/rudder. A flight number. It is the code of the flight plan. (I'll explain what is a flight plan exactly later) The name of the airplane's operator. It is usually the name of the airline company. If it's takeoff weight is more than 255,000 pounds the aircraft gets a Heavy-sign. A callsign. For example: Airbus 21-17 Heavy or Lufthansa 3108 The main question: How can an aircaft brake? The most common brake system is the wheel brake of just brake. It is present on every aircraft, but the bigger ones can't use them at their (high) landing speeds. Thrust Reverser or Reverse Thrust. (Magyarul Sugrfordt) It's a function of the jet airplanes' engines. In this mode, the engines blow out the air in the opposite direction, so the airplane slows down. You can not use this in the air. Speed Brake or Spoiler. It's a piece of metal on the wings that increases drag. It is present only on bigger planes, but it's advantage is that you can use it in the air too. (Sometimes it's good, when descending in a storm with a big plane.) Spoiler Reverse thrust system of the engine

Things on an air map, that the pilots use for navigation / manoeuvres:
An Intersection: This is the simplest thing. Physically an intersection doesn't exist. It's just a coordinate, where the planes usually fly. Each intersection has got an identification code. You can navigate to an intersection by the GPS. Usually airways are virtual lines between intersections An NDB (Non-Directional Beacon): An NDB is a radio beacon. If you tune your radio to an NDB you will know its direction. But you don't know the distance. A VOR (VHF Omnidirectional Range): A VOR is the other type of radio beacon. But unlike the NDB it tells you the distance to it. So you can easily use it for e. g. landing. (You can land with an NDB radio signal too, but that's more complicated. I'll explain it later) And the main difference betveen a VOR and an NDB is that you can fly over a VOR at a specific direction, but you can't do it with an NDB. An example: You want to fly over a point and then turn right to 30. With an NDB you just fly to it, and when you crossed it, you can begin the turn. But with a VOR you can set the plane to be on course 30 when we cross the VOR. So it's more precise. (Precision is very important at landings)

NDB

VOR

Usually airports have at least an NDB, but the bigger ones usually have VOR(s) too. And they often have at least one runway with an ILS. An ILS (Instrument Landing System): This is a radio beacon at the runways, that sends the ideal approach path to the airpane. It has got two parts: The localiser is the horizontal, the glide scope is the vertical part. Pilots use the ILS in bad weather of at night. You can fly the plane on this path manually, or you can use the autopilot. But the autopilot can't land with the ILS, because its path is a straight line, so you have to disable it about 200 feet above the ground. (See the picture below)

Ideal glidepath:

Straight ILS glidepath: