Recommended: lay the phone flat on the tray table, screen up. The gyroscope works correctly at any angle, but flat eliminates the 90° yaw-as-bank problem and is more stable on a tray table during turbulence.
Phone face-up, USB port facing the nose of the aircraft. Screen readable from above. This is the easiest and most reliable orientation — no mount needed, doesn't fall over in turbulence.
Phone vertical, screen facing you. Works fine but requires the phone to stay upright. SET LEVEL must be pressed after placing the phone. Turbulence can shift the mount angle and cause drift.
GeekFlight works at any angle — the sensor blend adapts continuously. You do not need to tell the app which orientation you're using.
Every movement an aircraft makes is described by three rotations. GeekFlight measures all three from your phone's gyroscope.
Quick memory test: Roll = tip a wine glass sideways. Pitch = tilt it forward so wine pours out. Yaw = spin it on the table without tilting.
The bank gauge (artificial horizon) shows roll. The pitch indicator shows nose angle. The turn coordinator shows yaw rate. On the Gyro screen, the 3D plane model moves with the phone — that's your ground truth test.
Do this before every flight. The Gyro screen lets you verify the gyroscope is working and all axes are correct before you rely on the attitude display.
Open GeekFlight and tap the GYRO button in the bottom menu to open the Gyro screen.
You'll see a 3D wireframe aircraft and three bar charts labelled PITCH · ROLL · YAW. The bars show live gyro rates as you move the phone.
Hold the phone flat on the tray table (or a flat surface). Tap SET LEVEL. The plane model should sit wings-level.
Test roll: tilt the right edge of the phone up. The plane's right wing should rise. Tilt it back — wing should return to level.
Test pitch: tilt the top edge of the phone up (like a ramp). The plane's nose should rise. Tilt it back — nose returns level.
Test yaw: slowly rotate the phone clockwise (spinning on the table). The plane should yaw right. Spin back — returns to heading.
If all three match, your gyro is working correctly. You're done.
Phone movement → plane movement, with no lag and no drift after you stop moving. The plane holds position when the phone is still. If it slowly drifts back to level by itself, that's the G-sensor correction working — this is normal and intentional.
Yaw moves bank gauge: rotating the phone causes the bank to show 90° — see Section 6 to fix.
Roll and pitch are swapped: tilting forward moves the bank gauge — try toggling AXES SWAP in Settings.
Plane doesn't move at all: no gyro hardware detected — see Section 7.
Bank is backwards: toggle BANK FLIP in Settings.
Pitch is backwards: toggle PITCH FLIP in Settings.
Select your aircraft — tap the aircraft type on the main screen. This sets the cabin pressurisation model, turbulence weight class, and cruise speed used for ETA.
Calibrate gyro (optional but recommended) — in Settings, run the SPIN/ROLL/FLIP calibration for each axis. One slow 360° rotation per axis. Only needs doing once per device.
Run the gyro test — Gyro screen, SET LEVEL, test all three axes as per Section 3. Adjust AXES SWAP / BANK FLIP / PITCH FLIP in Settings until correct.
Set your route — enter departure and arrival ICAO codes (e.g. LHR, JFK) and scheduled times. GeekFlight uses baro climb detection to auto-start the flight timer.
SET LEVEL in the cockpit — after placing the phone in its final position, tap SET LEVEL. This zeros the attitude reference. Do not move the phone after this.
At cruise — set altitude — read your plane altitude from the seatback screen, enter it in the ALT SET box and tap SET. This calibrates the cabin pressure model to real conditions.
SET LEVEL only resets the gyro attitude. It does not reset the barometric altitude reference. You can tap SET LEVEL to fix a drifted horizon without losing your altitude calibration.
This is the pressurised cabin altitude — the altitude equivalent of the air pressure inside the cabin. At cruise (e.g. FL350) the cabin is pressurised to the equivalent of about 8,000ft on most aircraft (6,000ft on B787/A350). This is what your body experiences, not the actual plane altitude.
GeekFlight estimates the true outside altitude by modelling the pressurisation differential — the difference between cabin pressure and outside air. This is accurate to ±500ft without calibration, and much more accurate after using ALT SET.
1. Look at the seatback screen for your current plane altitude (e.g. 35,000ft).
2. Enter that number in the ALT SET box in the cockpit screen.
3. Tap SET.
GeekFlight back-calculates the exact pressure differential and QNH for your conditions. After setting, the plane altitude estimate becomes accurate. Do this once at cruise — no need to repeat unless you change aircraft.
QNH is the reference pressure that converts raw barometric pressure into altitude. Standard atmosphere = 1013.25 hPa. If you're on the ground and the altimeter reads wrong, adjust QNH until it shows your known elevation. In flight, use ALT SET instead — it sets QNH automatically.
On the ground at sea level: QNH should read ~1013 hPa. If the ALT SET function gives a crazy QNH number, check the barometer is working on the Sensor Status screen (Section 7) — some devices return pressure in Pascals rather than hPa, which the app corrects automatically.
Open the Data screen (bottom bar → DATA). Scroll to the sensor diagnostic section. Each sensor shows ✅ working or ❌ missing. This is the first place to look when something isn't working.
Some budget phones have no gyroscope hardware. Without a gyro, GeekFlight falls back to G-sensor mode for bank and pitch — using the accelerometer alone. This works at level cruise but cannot track attitude through manoeuvres (the G-sensor sees the same acceleration as gravity during turns). Turbulence measurement and route tracking still work fully.
Without a barometer, cabin altitude, plane altitude, and baro-based takeoff detection are unavailable. The grey ALT gauge indicates no baro. Flight progress tracking will use scheduled times from your route instead of baro climb detection. GPS altitude (if available) is shown separately.
Once per device, or if the attitude readings feel consistently off by the same amount. In Settings, run each axis (SPIN, ROLL, FLIP) by doing one slow 360° rotation and tapping DONE. The calibration scale factor is saved permanently. You do not need to redo this every flight.
Tip: if the 3D plane on the Gyro screen drifts slowly when the phone is still, this is normal G-correction behaviour, not a broken gyro. A broken gyro means the plane does not move at all when you rotate the phone.