My Century 31 uses the AI. It's not very common though.

On the general topic... an AP is jolly handy when flying ANY
cross country. It's kind of hard work to fly a long xc without
one. However autopilots are so fickle that you'd better be
able to hand fly without worrying about it! My experience
(in several aircraft) is that they are down as much as not.
Also when the going gets really tough you want to hand fly.
If you're not comfortable hand flying on top or in smooth
cloud, you're really going to be in trouble when you hit
mod-to-sev turbulence in a front and the ap can't handle it.

My policy is to use the ap in good conditions on long flights,
and to hand fly on training flights.

John

"Peter R." wrote in message
...
[repost as my original never appeared - apologies if it does]

Ray Andraka ) wrote:

Until the autopilot goes TU on you... If it is a conventional A/P, it
may not
work if you lose instrument vacuum or your AI, for example. Real bad
time to
be out of practice hand-flying without and autopilot to back you up.

What general aviation AP uses the AI (attitude indicator)? I have
experience with the Bendix/King KAP-140 and the S-TEC 60-2 and neither
rely
on the AI for input. Are there some that do?

If the aircraft loses suction, the wing leveler feature of the above APs,
which use the electric turn coordinator, would probably make partial panel
flying safer.


--
Peter R.















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