Autopilot does not capture Glideslope any more (TBM930)

Today after the update I tried an ILS approach.

  • ALT and HDG active (green)
  • LOC and GS preselected (white)

First it just flew straight over the locator without capturing. After I corrected the course manually and got LOC activated somehow, it also didn’t capture the GS (although it was still preselected), and just continued the flight on the current altitude.

I am flying by instruments only occasionally, but until now I never had such problems.

Maybe I am doing something wrong, or there is a problem with my installation? Or can someone confirm the issue?

I had the same problem today at two different airports in the TBM930. ALT and HDG active, LOC and GS armed but neither would capture and I was intercepting the localizer well before the GS. Used heading to try to re-intercept the localizer but couldn’t get it to work at intercept angles anywhere from 5-40°. This was working fine prior to today’s update.

Update - I just had it work successfully but this time I entered the ILS frequency manually instead of inserting the approach through the FMS.

Hmm, oddly i caught the localizer by being above it today. Maybe it’s upside down? lol.

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Same problem. First time with this update…

Do you think that pressing the approach button would help in this case?

As I and others have reported elsewhere, this problem started with the previous update, not yesterday.
Workaround is to use NAV if only briefly before selecting APR. Mostly works fine, though a couple of ILS approaches I have to do very slowly otherwise I end up much too high!
Richard

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I don’t seem to be having an issue capturing GS in the TBM. And autopilot isn’t sluggish anymore. It isn’t constantly overshooting the runway centerline from the old sluggish responsiveness.

Approach was selected but was going from heading mode directly to approach mode without using nav mode in-between.

Same for me.

I had the same problem with TBM and 787. I had Alt hold and manual HDG selected and GL & LOC armed but they did not capture. I will try NAV/ LNAV&VNAV next time…

Autopilot does seem to be getting worse in vertical modes. Have had similar issues on the CJ4. When capturing an altitude it is sloppy (at times levels off and descends prior to capturing in a climb).

Also, on several ILS approaches it captures the glideslope, but then the descent rate is excessive and it immediately goes to full scale deflection too low. (but ironically enough, one time it captured it and flew it perfectly) Also did a similar thing on a GPS / LPV approach, went full scale below the glidepath.

Here is a video on one of the ILS approaches. (left the autopilot on to see what it would do). Glideslope intercept is around the 11min 15sec mark. This is with the WorkingTitle mod, but I understand they are using the default autopilot.

Also, at the 3min 10sec mark, it isn’t really making an attempt to hold the selected vertical speed in the climb. Just does a lazy climb around 1000 fpm.

I also have a similar problem on the CJ4 – it captures the glideslope fine and starts at descent but then a bit later it appears to forget what its job is without my touching anything and the plane starts descending less raplidly, as the glideslope gets further and further below it.

Does anyone have any idea what my options are at that point? I’m a relative newbie on autopilot-managed ILS approaches. Can I cancel the glide-slope control or just start shoving the nose down without losing localizer horizontal auto-pilot management?

Also, often when I break out at 500 feet or so I find the plane is lined up with one edge off the runway, not the center, or maybe 150 feet off center. Does that panel offset control do anything? I don’t notice any change when I try to tell it to change the offset.

For the last 3 days, TBM not catching the ILS. I 've tried manually punching the frequency in skyvector charts that doesn’t work ither. Any suggestions?

I’ve noticed that when in HDG mode and the FMS set on NAV1, clicking on the APR mode illuminates both HDG and APR. When this happens, the aircraft will fly right through the localizer.

As a work around, when both HDG and APR buttons are illuminated, I click off HDG mode, click on NAV mode, then reselect APR and the aircraft then picks up the localizer and when ready, the glideslope.

This has worked for me every time. Perhaps others could check and verify if this works for them.

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Will try that next time.

hello
I have the same problem at LFBH with the TBM930
Loc captured but not GS (LOC and GS green, capture from above, APP button)

I’ve just flown into *KSAN on ILS Z OR LOC Z RWY 9, properly configured, tracking green needles, approach armed etc, but it didn’t catch the glideslope so i had to take it in manually. I’m completely ok with ILS approach procedure but have no idea what happened.

Same, entering ILS from either above or below does not work.

Same again just happened in Dublin, it doesn’t seem to work at all

Same here.