Ground Reference Maneuvers Chapter 6 Introduction Initial pilot training requires that a pilot understand the  relationship of the various flight controls pressure inputs to  the resulting attitudes of the airplane. This allows a pilot to  develop a sense of feel and understand the various indications  of airplane performance, such as pitch, roll, and yaw attitudes.  With sufficient competency in this environment, the pilot is  ready to apply these skills and place the airplane, not only  in the correct attitude and power configuration, but also in  orientation to specific ground-based references. These skills  are the basis for traffic patterns, survey, photographic, sight- seeing, aerial application (crop dusting) and various other  flight profiles requiring specific flightpaths referenced to  points on the surface.