Nice screen shots! I have only just started flying this plane and am enjoying it, but having some trouble with the Altitude Selector you may be able to help with. (I note you seem to have quite a lot of experience with this). After I select say 3,500 Ft, press the “Arm” button and engage AP the plane climbs to the set altitude and stays there, as it should. However I can then turn “Arm” off and the plane still maintains 3,500 Ft whatever Throttle/RPM setting I have; e.g. the plane will go into the yellow overspeed range, or alternatively stall due to low speed before it deviates from 3,500 Ft? I have not touched the VS button yet. On one occasion I thought the “ALT” button seemed to light up on the AP unit without my pressing it! I am no expert but do you have any comments on this? Does what it is happening seem normal?
To my knowledge, the ARM light should go out when you reach your set altitude. “Arming” is done to get you there, not keep you there. If the ALT light is lit, then the AP will keep that altitude. If you want to change altitude manually then toggle off ALT.
Well, it’s not why the don’t work in .5 channel increments. They don’t work in .5 channel increments because back when they were designed, those .5 channel increments were not part of the standard.
When the standard was changed, pilots didn’t bother to upgrade because as you note they could still listen in on those increments. Or, if memory serves, I think there used to be simple kits that maintenance tech could use to upgrade the units to listen in on those channels if you only half turned the dial and didn’t click in or something like that.
I said it’s why many ADF receivers omit the 0.5 spacing. Yes it may be due to time of release as you say. Perhaps ‘many ADF receivers are missing the 0.5 spacing’ would be more accurate than omit. The main point being that they are still used IRL so the sim needs to change to allow these non 0.5 units to pickup the station when tuned to the nearest whole frequencies.
It sounds like you’ve reached your set altitude and it’s auto-enabled altitude hold (which is normal) and you then might need to set your plane to cruise so you don’t over-speed from using climb settings while flat & level. You shouldn’t need to press the ARM button to turn it off. It’ll do that automatically when you get to your target. If it then shows ALT on the annunciator, you’re holding altitude. Otherwise it’s probably just switched to Pitch Hold which doesn’t specifically enunciate that state anywhere, but is the default state when AP is on but no other altitude function is and will effectively hold your altitude as well. In either case you’ve still gotta set for cruise after the AP levels you off after climbing.
Thanks for your reply Lily. I’ve done a bit more experimenting today and can confirm that the “Arm” button stays On until you turn it Off. It does not seem to go Off after the target altitude is reached. As you say the ALT (Altitude Hold) light needs to be switched Off in order to change the altitude.
Thanks for your reply ENON2058. I’ve done a bit more experimenting today and can confirm that yes, when you reach your target altitude the “ALT” light does indeed come on automatically (just before the target altitude is reached) and the altitude is then held. So this is completely logical and useful to have visual confirmation that the plane’s altitude is being held. However the ARM button does not go Off when the target altitude is reached; it seems you have to turn it Off manually.
To climb again I just set the new altitude on the selector and turned ALT Off. As it was still “Armed” the plane started climbing to the new altitude albeit very slowly. I then started to adjust the “Autopilot Pitch Ref.” via the white UP/DOWN switch which increases/decreases the rate of pitch/VS. (It must do same job as the AP pitch wheel on the Cessna 414?). The plane did however go straight through the target altitude without stopping on one occasion - maybe the VS was too high? I now have a much better understanding of the AP in this plane - thanks for your help.
Yeah, I totally admit I was being a grammar meany 
(and giving a little history as well)
You are totally correct on your real points
I just now tested this and that’s not what I observed. I have just made a short video showing how Altitude Capture works for me when I just tested a few mins ago.
– with AP on, pressing ARM enables the target altitude and a 500 ft climb rate towards it, which you can push the knob to adjust.
– When you get within 1000ft of target altitude it will show CAPT and the system will begin leveling you off. ARM & CAPT will also leave the screen 500ft before target (though the procedure is still completing).
– Once you reach the target altitude, ALT Hold mode auto-enables on the main KAP 150 unit below the radio. ARM is also now off, all automatically.
– You can then adjust the target altitude on the KAS device wherever you want and nothing will happen until you press ARM again.
Keep in mind, while this is all happening you’re not pressing ENG or seeing VS displayed on the KAS screen at all. Only the ^ symbol when you press the knob to view/adjust your climb speed. If you ever do actually see VS on the screen, that means VS mode is on and ARM/CAPT mode is disabled, which means you will shoot past any target you had thought you set (also shown in video). VS and ARM cannot be enabled and on the screen at the same time from my experience. This should be possible according to the actual IRL product manual, but the sim/plane implementation of this AP system does not seem to be entirely true-to-life. In the sim, pressing one will disable the other.
Also, the UP/DOWN rocker on the KAP only works while you’re in basic Pitch Hold mode (only AP is enunciated) with the KAS out of the equation. The rocker cannot adjust the VS or ARM/CAPT modes on the KAS. As soon as ARM or VS mode is active, the rate settings on the KAS are what’s in use and must be adjusted there. From the sequence of events you described above, I would wager that after you reached your previous target and turned ALT off, ARM was not still on and any slow climbing you saw was coincidental. You then began using the UP/DOWN rocker to adjust, indicating that you were actually in Pitch Hold mode, which makes sense given your described sequence, and is also why you shot past your capture target. You needed to press ARM again and control from the KAS.
Thank you very much for this comprehensive explanation and great little video as well. I knew nothing about the effect of pressing the inner knob on the KAS device to adjust the climb rate. Ditto for the use of the “ENG” button to go to VS Mode.
When I said the “ARM” button does not go Off when the target altitude is reached I was incorrectly hovering over the button to determine if it was Off or On, rather than going by the “ARM” text on the screen which hadn’t noticed.
My understanding of this AP system has now taken a leap forward. I think others would benefit from greatly from your post as well.
Happy to help. I am kinda a nut about over-explaining things, and this is a pretty quirky system so it helps me re-evaluate my understanding as well. Until I made the video, like others previously in this thread, I believed the KAP rocker switch didn’t actually do anything, probably because we don’t really prefer to be in pitch hold, so I learned something as well. I may start using it during take-off now, since it’s easier and faster to manipulate and it seems accurate enough compared to VS. The whole “snap to 500” thing with ARM kinda annoys me during takeoff, so I’ll probably wait till I switch to cruise climb to turn that on.
I don’t think the flood light rotary dial on the panel works
One of the 4 dials doesn’t work I might be misremembering but in any case it’s too dark in the cockpit at night because of it
Yup its the flood light rotary.
I like night flights so yeah it’s pretty annoying
Plz fix Asobo/carenado 
Look up and right from the pilot seat. There’s a round button on the ceiling there that will turn on the overhead flood light. It’s not very bright, but it’s better than nothing.
Don’t you notice an erroneous behavior of autopilot (altitude capture and v/s) since the last update (40th ann.)?
I’m not finding a way to make it works as I used to do before this last update. Sometimes it works, sometimes doesn’t…
I just flew it for the first time since the update, and yes, it seems like the KAS is broken. Did you also install the new WT GTN530 from the marketplace? I was wondering if that’s what’s causing it.
I am unable to get the ARM button to do anything now. VS/ENG still seemed to work properly though. So I was just using ALT hold and Pitch Hold from the KAP mostly. I also kept seeing the FT reading on the KAP set itself to 999,999 and then twisting the knob would change it to 50,000 which you could adjust down from there. No point in that though, since ARM won’t work.
I opened a ZenDesk ticket with Carenado so we’ll see what they say.
It’s definitely an issue with the Quest controller and it’s starting to drive me crazy too. It’s way too easy to accidentally spin the trim wheel right through the panel wall, even when just pressing something to wake the controller. Then suddenly I’ve got maxed out nose-down trim, which is devastating to your flight.
It’s definitely quirkier with the WT GTN530 installed, I’ve found the following works pretty consistently when using the WT GTN530.
-
Dial in the desired preselect altitude and press ARM. The AP will go into ALT mode, you won’t see ARM on the KAS297B display but you will see ARM in the annunciator at the top of the panel.
-
Push in the dial to switch the KAS297B display to VS mode, press ENG to sync to the current Vertical Speed then adjust as desired.
At this point everything should capture as usual, the annunciations on the KAS297B display just may not correctly show ARM and CAPT when it’s supposed to.
This definitely does not happen for me. I can use the knob to set an altitude, but pressing ARM just switches me between Pitch & ALT mode, which shows on the light panel, but not the KAP panel. I never see ARM enunciate on the light panel (are you sure you’re not seeing ALT?). Another weird thing I’ve seen with testing today. When I pre-select a VS speed, say +800, then press ENG, it will enable VS but put me at like -100 or some other random value that isn’t the +800 I selected. (edit. oh, it’s capturing. i’m pretty sure it used to take the pre-set value if you’d set one, not capture your current)