I’ve searched and I haven’t found any posts on this question. I’m also not sure where this question belongs, but this seemed the best spot.
The ATSimulations FWP.149 I have found is really difficult to take out the left roll inherent in the flight model. So it’s very tiring to fly on multi-hour flights.
It has no autopilot on the panel, but it does have access to the keyboard commands. I’m a relative newbie to autopilots. All I’d really like to do is trim out at altitude and direction, and invoke Altitude Hold, heading hold, and wing leveler. But I don’t know how to get the Autopilot to know I just want it to use the current heading and altitude and hold it.
Every time I turn on the Autopilot, it just turns the plane to the North, and I don’t know how to get it to hold the current altitude. Is this possible just using keyboard commands or button bindings on my controllers?
I’ve bound buttons to Autopilot on, Autopilot off, Altitude Hold On, Altitude Hold Off, Heading Hold On, Heading Hold Off, Wing leveler On, and Wing leveler off.
Autopilot on and the plane turns to the North. none of the other buttons seem to do anything. More likely, I don’t know how to properly use them.
Did you bind something to the plus and minus commands, and the commands for selecting which input is used for them (eg for selecting the altitude)?
(In general you’re not going to have a good time using an autopilot with no way to see its configuration, even if it happens to work instead of being correctly disabled. But good luck!)
No, I wasn’t sure what’s what outside the commands I bound. I don’t care about the Vertical Speed setting, I don’t want it to go up and down, I’m not trying to get it to follow a flight plan, I just want it to hold what is. I’m afraid there’s no capability for that, though.
This is the ONE area where 2D panels were useful in FSX, to add functionality occasionally used that’s not on the panel.
That’s already done. The autopilot turns on and off, but, I don’t know how to use keyboard commands to push the plane around the sky. And technically, I don’t want to have to, I just want it to maintain the current altitude and heading, and keep the wings level.
My problem is, I don’t know how to use it without a feedback mechanism to know what the settings are. The P149 is famous for its gauges not interacting properly with the sim. They finally got the radios working properly so they can be changed through the ATC interface with the third update to the plane (I usually set it by hand, but, sometimes it’s just simpler to let ATC change the channel, especially in high responsibility situations). The Transponder still needs to be set by hand.
My point is, the DG has a heading bug of sorts (it’s really just a pointer you can spin), but it has no effect on the autopilot.
As I’ve said, I don’t know how to get it to just hold the current flight configuration. I would think this would be the job of the wing leveler, at least then all I’d have to do is maintain trim for altitude. But I haven’t gotten it to work yet. And, without any interface, I don’t know how I would.
That’s a great solution. Really. But, since I don’t own one, are there commands I’m missing, or ways to set up the autopilot so it acts like I’m asking? I will look into getting one.
There is also a Tablet APP that does a similar function, but its a yearly subscription.
The Stream deck is a one time purchase of the Hardware Unit + Software.
Tablet app looks like it’s very buggy. I’d consider $12/yr, $25/yr is a little steep. I guess they’re more interested in selling the hardware.
I’m in the middle of a working on purchasing a plane, but, when that’s done I’ll look into this. I have a possibility for a share in a PA28-180 that’ll be a much cheaper option than the Piaggio FWP149 I was looking to purchase on my own… But, man, that Piaggio is sexy and perfect for me.
If you set it up just right it’ll hold for a minute or two, but, as soon as your speed changes just a couple of knots it’ll turn one way or the other. If you distract yourself doing anything, say change a radio channel or the transponder, by the time you come back, it’ll be drifting off again. And the response is really slow, so it makes it difficult to get to a stabilized state.
It’s pretty complicated to set up unless you’re a seasoned GitHub/Python user already (I’m not), but, it works great. It was a little confusing at first, took me minute to google what a Repo is, but, once I figured that out, it took me about 10 minutes to set up and use.
Bind the same key to autopilot on, altitude hold, heading hold. Yes, the same key can bind to multiple commands. Ignore the message that the key is already assigned. Bind another key to autopilot off, altitude hold off, and heading hold off.
Input binding is essentially completely undocumented at present and the tool tips in game can be a bit vague but through trial and error I managed to find the keybinds for most of the simple autopilot functions.
Enabling autopilot functions in the aircraft config files - if you can figure that out then binding the controls to keys should be the easiest part.
Keybinding is not an issue. I was looking for a tutorial on how to use the global autopilot in a plane with no inherent autopilot. It is activated in the I think it’s the Flight_model.cfg file for the plane, but there’s no interface for it in the cockpit and I had no feedback or way to set heading or altitude.
Not really understanding how the autopilot works exactly, I was wondering if there was a command I didn’t know about that just locks the current altitude and heading. Even a wing leveler would have helped, but I haven’t gotten that working, either.
But, the cockpit companion app I found does what I need. If that mobile companion app displays the autopilot commands on my phone, that would be even better.
Yes there are basic autopilot toggles which exist and which you could bind if the functionality was enabled in the aircraft config.
The basic autopilot toggle on/off worked in the VL-3 before Asobo decided that it shouldn’t have that functionality.
(As did Altitude Hold, Heading and Vertical Speed)
For “wing levelling” you are looking for “Heading” controls which will effectively lock your aircraft into whichever heading you have set the heading bug…you will also need to bind keys to increment this heading bug)
