If it’s a small Cessna, I mostly fly it by hand. The only exception is the Grand Caravan, that one is also fun to fly with AP.
When flying bigger planes like the CRJ, A320, 737 etc. I am mainly flying with AP.
I fly the Airbus exclusively, so I turn on autopilot after I rotate with positive climb and gear up. Then I only disengage autopilot just before flare for landing. So In terms of how much is that… around 99.99% of the flight.
Everything else, any adjustment that I have to make, are all done through the instruments, like changing heading, or changing altitude, etc.
I have a friend who is a real Boeing 737 Airline pilot, and he said the same thing I said above. Autopilot practically 99% of the entire flight. Although, they usually handfly the aircraft until stable on the flight path before engaging AP, and they usually disengage AP once they have visual of the runway, even on ILS approaches. But in-between those phase, it’s all Autopilot, and any adjustments are made through the instruments.
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For me it depends on the plane and flight type.
For sightseeing tours, which I do often, I typically hand fly with little to no AP assistance.
For other flights, particularly in busy airspace where the workload of flying and following ATC instructions is heavy, it’s AP 100% of the time. I normally like to hand fly up to cruise altitude if I can on these flights, but that typically depends on how busy the airspace is. I’ll keep the AP on until I’m on short final then hand fly the plane down to the ground.
It Varies what Aircraft I am flying, Airbus 99.9% Disconnect AP at 500-800 Feet before landing. Stock Cessna no AP, Flying from UK to France.
Also learning all the different Systems…TDS GTNXi, PMS50 Mods, G1000 Its all good fun.
Beuty of Flight Simming
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Really depends on the intent of the flight. For instance, in airliners, you fly a lot of it on the AP, and that’s how they are flown. I’m sure you can imagine, airline pilots don’t hand fly long transatlantic routes for 5 hours.
As for GA, it depends on how the plane behaves, some planes will hold and trim pretty nicely, so for those I don’t use use the AP too much. But, the C172 is a good example of one that acts a little funny. I don’t remember ever flying a GA plane in real life that was that unstable. Real 172’s will fly pretty level for a long time once you have them trimmed out. But in the sim I need a lot of AP to stay sane.
Usually in GA planes I’m just doing altitude or heading hold. I rarely use the nav modes.
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Where is the rudder trim located on that C172 ?
I don’t know by heart, as I basically never fly the Cessna 172.
It most likely a crank handle with a vertical rotating axis, either between the seats or in the roof liner. Furthermore, a keyboard shortcut should be bound by default (if not, create a new key binding), which makes trimming a lot easier than operating a virtual crank handle.
Best,
Underbird
C172 rudder trim is a metal tab on the rudder you bend by hand. On the ground, unless you are very brave 
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Thank you for the reply.
OH I see, you are saying it is a physical mechanical bend that you make on a rudder tab and not a in cockpit rudder trim similar to the aileron trim. That is not much help for a software based flight simulator.
O well…
Yes it is, Its a Software PRESET … in MSFS, a parameter in one of the .cfg files…
What are you saying ? Is there a rudder trim adjustment that may be made from “inside” the MSFS without having to find and edit a .cfg file ?
I use it all the time until the approach. If it is really clear I will leave it off except with the 737
I fly airliners, so it’s engaged as soon as I’m wheels up until I’m about 500 feet from landing.
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The C172 does not have a rudder trim and it is not present in the sim either.
The trim control option in the screenshot above has no effect on planes which don’t have the trim controls.
I don’t think it has a aileron trim either, however you can trim aileron directly on your controller depending on what controller you’re using, so that can help a bit.
hardly ever. VFR looking out of the cockpit with hands on, the whole point of the sim as far as i am concerned
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Thanks for the info
Thanks for the help
Engaging autopilot upon gear up sounds to soon for me. Unless there are loads of vectors and level offs (as not to overload the monitoring pilot having set the FGCP) I fly up to at least a few thousand feet, initial turns etc. in real life. And often the complete approach sometimes without FD.
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I hand fly every new aircraft addon on first very short distance flights to get a feel for their character.
No autopilot.