A rudder pedal is a foot-operated aircraft flight control interface for controlling the

rudder A rudder is a primary control surface used to steer a ship, boat, submarine, hovercraft, airship, or other vehicle that moves through a fluid medium (usually air or water). On an airplane, the rudder is used primarily to counter adverse yaw ...

of an

aircraft An aircraft ( aircraft) is a vehicle that is able to flight, fly by gaining support from the Atmosphere of Earth, air. It counters the force of gravity by using either Buoyancy, static lift or the Lift (force), dynamic lift of an airfoil, or, i ...

. The usual set-up in modern aircraft is that each pilot has a pedal set consisting of a pair of pedals, with one pedal for each foot. Each right and left pedal works together so that one pedal pops out when the other is depressed, and convention is that the rudder rotates in the same direction as the arm connecting the two rudder pedals. For example, if a pilot presses the left rudder pedal forward, rotating the arm clockwise, the rudder will also rotate clockwise, deflecting airflow at the tail to the left and yawing the plane to the left. Similarly, if the pilot presses the right rudder pedal forward, the plane will yaw to the right (cf. "tiller orders"). In aircraft with duplicate control systems (such as

trainer aircraft A trainer is a class of aircraft designed specifically to facilitate flight training of pilots and aircrews. The use of a dedicated trainer aircraft with additional safety features—such as tandem flight controls, forgiving flight characteristic ...

, transport aircraft and airliners), for example with

fly-by-wire Fly-by-wire (FBW) is a system that replaces the conventional aircraft flight control system#Hydro-mechanical, manual flight controls of an aircraft with an electronic interface. The movements of flight controls are converted to electronic sig ...

, the pedal sets of both pilots are linked together so that the other pilot can seamlessly take over. On most modern aircraft, the wheel brakes are activated by pressing down on the top of the rudder pedals, such brakes are therefore called ''toe brakes''. In order for pilots of different heights to have an ergonomic sitting position, the position of some pedal sets can be adjusted.

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{{Aircraft components Aircraft components

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