When do you use autopilots?

Reasonable.

I must ask and encourage you to at least take a discovery flight at a
local flying school. Have you ever given it a try?




Mxsmanic wrote:
The Visitor writes:


Do you sit there at your sim, droning along for 3,4,5,6,7,8,9 hours
enroute, handflying?


No, but I was wondering if I was "cheating" by using the autopilot.


What aircraft/route are you asking about?


At this very instant (thanks to autopilot), I'm flying VFR from KPHX
to KSAN, via GBN JUDTH MOHAK WARTT BZA ARGUS IPL NICKK KUMBA PILLO
CANNO BARET RYAHH HAILE KSAN. The GPS unit is handling the routing.
I picked 6000 feet MSL for most of the flight because the manual says
the Baron is highly efficient at this altitude; I'll go briefly to
8500 to get over the mountains on the way in to San Diego.

If this is the way real pilots use autopilot, fine. I just don't want
to do anything that would handicap me in real flight (I'm not sure how
experienced real pilots are supposed to be in hand-flying).

"Ron Natalie" wrote in message
m...
Turbulence can actually be more difficult on the autopilot. It
wants to hold you to course and altitude and tends to overcontrol
to stay there.

Some AP's require you to disengage during moderate or stronger turbulence.
There's also a big difference between rate-based and attitude-based.

Hand flying you're willing to take the slight
deviations because you know it will even out in the long term.

As long as one does not over compensate.

In article ,
"Matt Barrow" wrote:

Some AP's require you to disengage during moderate or stronger turbulence.
There's also a big difference between rate-based and attitude-based.

Is there such a thing as pure "rate-based" vs. "attitude-based" in modern
AP's any more? Back in the days of steam gauges, each state variable
involved another mechanical data pick-off and gobs of discrete circuitry,
so controlling one variable at a time made sense.

In a glass cockpit, I would think you would grab all the data that's
available and come up with a control strategy which mixes inputs.

Mxsmanic wrote in
:

Within what limits? I fly to a heading and then 30 seconds later when
I check it again I've drifted two degrees or so and have to move it
back. Altitude is a much bigger problem, with a constant
roller-coaster ride through as much as 150 feet or so for quite a
while. By the time I wrestle it onto a steady altitude, I'm being
told to climb or descend again.

The accepted limits are documented in the Airmen Practical Test Standards,
which you can read online he

http://www.faa.gov/education_researc...ards/pilot/med
ia/FAA-S-8081-14A.pdf

The limits for Instrument flight are slightly "tighter" and are documented
he

http://www.faa.gov/education_researc...ards/media/FAA
-S-8081-4D.pdf

2 degrees of heading is acceptable. 150 feet of altitude, however, is not.

Mxsmanic wrote in
:

The Visitor writes:

Do you sit there at your sim, droning along for 3,4,5,6,7,8,9 hours
enroute, handflying?

No, but I was wondering if I was "cheating" by using the autopilot.

What aircraft/route are you asking about?

At this very instant (thanks to autopilot), I'm flying VFR from KPHX
to KSAN, via GBN JUDTH MOHAK WARTT BZA ARGUS IPL NICKK KUMBA PILLO
CANNO BARET RYAHH HAILE KSAN. The GPS unit is handling the routing.
I picked 6000 feet MSL for most of the flight because the manual says
the Baron is highly efficient at this altitude; I'll go briefly to
8500 to get over the mountains on the way in to San Diego.

Is this route off-airway? What is the OROCA in that area? 8500 is not an
IFR altitude, so unless you will be changing to VFR on top, you'll probably
either be at 8000 or 10000 in real life. I don't know the area well enough
to know for sure...

It sounds like you have some ideas of what it takes, but you really should
get some formal training. If you're that afraid of flying, you should at
least go to a Ground School course. They are not typically very expensive,
but they are very informative. Another alternative might be to purchase the
Gliem test prep books.

The Visitor writes:

Reasonable.

I must ask and encourage you to at least take a discovery flight at a
local flying school. Have you ever given it a try?

No. No money and no time to try it.

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Ron Natalie writes:

Sometimes it's BETTER FORM to use the autopilot on shorter flights.
Enroute is generally a lot of inactivity. Takeoff and landing
is the busy part of IFR. Best to off-load onto George when
you are busy.

I'm confused. Are you saying that autopilot should be used on
take-off and landing?

It seems that most autopilots aren't much help with take-off and
landing, beyond following an ILS approach most of the way in. Large
aircraft have fancy stuff that can autoland, but I don't know if small
aircraft can be equipped in that way (?).

Turbulence can actually be more difficult on the autopilot. It
wants to hold you to course and altitude and tends to overcontrol
to stay there. Hand flying you're willing to take the slight
deviations because you know it will even out in the long term.

Interesting. Are there any fancy autopilots that are smart enough to
deal with turbulence?

On a commercial airliner, wouldn't it be preferable to let the
autopilot wrestle with the turbulence in order to avoid upsetting
passengers with more radical movements in hand flying (assuming that
the pilot does not attempt to correct for minor movements from
turbulence)?

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Mxsmanic wrote:

No. No money and no time to try it.

Where aare you located?

Judah writes:

The accepted limits are documented in the Airmen Practical Test Standards,
which you can read online he

http://www.faa.gov/education_researc...ards/pilot/med
ia/FAA-S-8081-14A.pdf

The limits for Instrument flight are slightly "tighter" and are documented
he

http://www.faa.gov/education_researc...ards/media/FAA
-S-8081-4D.pdf

2 degrees of heading is acceptable. 150 feet of altitude, however, is not.

Thanks. I have saved these documents and will examine them in greater
detail as time permits.

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The Visitor writes:

Where aare you located?

Paris, France

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