FAA Helicopter Flying Handbook Practice Test

Pitch is rotation about the lateral axis, which runs wingtip to wingtip. In a helicopter, the cyclic controls tilt the rotor disk in the fore‑aft plane. When you push the cyclic forward, the rotor disk tilts forward and the thrust vector gains a forward component, which tends to lower the nose (pitching down). Pulling the cyclic back tilts the disk aft, creating a rearward thrust component that raises the nose (pitching up). So when cyclic input forward or aft makes the nose move up or down, that motion is aircraft pitch.

The other ideas describe different concepts: roll is rotation about the longitudinal axis (left to right), angle of attack is the angle between the wing’s chord and the oncoming air, and an airfoil is the shape of a blade or wing. These do not describe the nose-up/nose-down rotation about the lateral axis.