Is anyone besides me have autopilot problems? The altitude part seems to work fine. The airplane climbs to the assigned altitude and levels off. However, the auto pilot will not follow either the VOR heading or GPS nav. In fact, in some cases, when the NAV button is pushed, the airplane’s yoke will suddenly deflect all the way to the right, and the airplane will go into a spin. I cannot figure out if I’m doing something wrong or the program has a “bug”. Any ideas?
In the C208B AP appears to work most of the time. Holds ALT, climb/descend using VS (FLC does not work for me or I don’t know how to use it appropriately), follows VOR, HDG, and GPS from start to finish. Just completed an ILS Sacramento to Burbank flight. VNAV not working. I have some issues at departure, but they may be my issues and my inability to plan the flight correctly.
It seems everyone has some sort of inconsistent AP bug that’s usually unique to their copy of the sim, lol. For me once the A320neo radio nav didn’t plug in the radio frequency. It got the runway and course, not the frequency lol.
Also, today it was following a flight plan, then COMPLETELY disregarded the STAR and skipped the waypoints, heading direct to the airport for no reason. Might’ve been my wonky flightplan (it included a u-turn and some overlaps), but hey who knows.
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I have had the anomalous flight plan changes too, like suddenly heading direct. There’s still a lot of work they need to do for flight planning, the current iteration has led me to a few backtracks and at least one canceled flight.
Yep, I can understand that. I was able to salvage mine and turn on APPR but I was lucky.
Sometimes I forget to correct the CDI setting and the plane turns not the way I expected. One thing I see on the G1000 AP is if you set the HDG or NAV I do not have control on pitch (like the ALT is locked in as well even though it is not) I do not recall that being he case for the G1000. Same thing if I lock the ALT, I can try turning the plane but it just goes back to the heading when I enabled ALT Is this normal ?
I tried a approach into KSAN, I don’t think that is working. I was in the Beechcraft but I thing the G1000 is the same more or less for each plane when it comes to flight planning
Same thing just happened to me with the A320.
Both with the SID and the STAR.
Always worked fine before patch 2 though.
There are a few bugs. I’ve published repros for a few of them to zendesk. All of them are trigger-able by using the AP incorrectly. The AP doesn’t quite do what it should. That doesn’t mean it can’t happen if you do use the AP correctly but that is a lot rarer.
The bug you are talking about can happen if you override the AP course by about 90 degrees or more when it is turned on then let go of the yoke. I think it can also happen when we change modes properly as well (mixing HDG and NAV operation) but I’ve found that impossible to reproduce so far. It only happened to me once where I couldn’t explain it but I’m not sure of exactly what I did at the time so maybe it was my fault.
The main thing to be careful of is ensuring that you turn the AP off before you use the yoke. A second one may be to hand hold it more than if it were an airliner AP. They are the same beasts.
Hahaha! Isn’t that the truth. That is why I put little stock in them if there are no repro steps or a video. Especially if you ask for steps and they just say “I used it properly”. Absolutely meaningless. Even if it were true. All the cries of “it sucks!” really are just noise without evidence, not matter how much they rant. That’s why I put effort in my posts getting info and add them to zendesk.
yes it still goes into suicide mode on a regular basis for me too. That was one of my biggest issues before the patch and it hasn’t corrected this random behavior.
kudos to previous poster for identifying one of the ways to reproduce it.
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Have your best rate of climb indicated on your PFD (so around 105kts) and altitude preselected prior to selecting FLC. You’ll attain 800-1000fpm depending on your W/B setup. Vnav unfortunately does not work at all yet for any GA aircraft. Hope that helps.
Everytime I touch elevator trim axis my AP goes wild with altitude. It does heading hold perfectly, level flight with no issues, but when it comes to altitude hold it is not reliable. It tends to work when engaged initially, can fly great for over an hour, even changing altitude using VS, but down the road something always goes wrong for some reason, and it starts pulling up or fails to hold altitude completely. I fly mostly XCub and Grand Caravan, but tried DA40 yesterday and had altitude hold issues as well. Also, 172 during Patagonia Bush Trip, same ■■■■.
You shouldn’t be touching your controls in those aircraft whilst AP is engaged - you’re fighting the computer. The C208, for me, has been the most consistent aircraft in terms of overall flight success. If you want to hold an altitude, ensure it is preselected - if you are climbing, in the 208 for example you’ll want to ensure you maintain 105-110kts for best rate of climb (easily utilized with the FLC function). If you’re descending, utilize your VS function and the VS slide wheel to control your rate of descent. The AP will be a bit wonky when you’re approaching the selected altitude, but give it a few seconds to correct and it’ll slow down and ensure you hold it.
I don’t touch them on purpose. Problems happen if I touch them by accident or if elevator trim is not zeroed before engaging AP. They just don’t go along, but AP obviously overreacting like drama queen.
Check for both, once selected it was going steep climb and I couldn’t figure out why…W/B may have been the issue. Ill have to try again, thanks.
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This may be a sensitivity issue with your peripherals then. I would go over your controls in settings once more to ensure there’s no conflicting control surface setup - and adjust sensitivity as necessary.
Your flight should be stable before engaging your AP - if you’re set up to climb at 1000FPM for instance, ensure you’re already doing so or nearest to that rate. Happy to help troubleshoot if you need.
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Did this happen to be into KBOS? I flew there last night with the approach overlapping the airport then u-turning for ILS. AP went straight to the runway waypoint so I had to manually fly it around until I could enable approach mode
Nope, it was LSGG but I had the exact same AP behaviour. U-turn planned, AP skipped to runway and I had to manually fly until I could enable APPR.
So weird. Also after takeoff in that same flight AP thought it’d be a good idea to climb at a 45 degree angle. My passengers in Self Loading Cargo loved that lol. Tanked my rating for the whole flight…
Figured out what I was doing incorrectly and it boils down to Flight Director. I was activating FD prior to departure and once activated FLC and AP were chasing FD, leading to unpredictable results. I think I now have a good procedure for this, but I would appreciate comments/suggestions.
- Set course (HDG/GPS) and make active in CDI.
- Set desired altitude.
- Depart and trim for climb rate (hands-off control).
- Engage AP.
- Engage FLC (should capture rate and engage).
- Engage FD (should now trail rather than lead).
- Engage course selector (HDG, NAV).
I’m not a pilot so none of this was intuitive to me.
Hey, you generally want to engage FLC prior to engaging AP - so long as you’ve got your best rate of climb indicated already. I have noticed issues with the FD behaving erratically as well, and while typically enabling it (depending on system) on ground is OK, in the current patch it’s best to leave off until stable
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