With no add-ons installed.
When I enable altitude keep on the autopilot, it automatically sets my current altitude. If I change the altitude, the AP does nothing. Impossible to change my altitude with the autopilot.
It happened to me with several aircraft, for example de the Cessna Caravan.
If you change the altitude when in AP-mode, you have to tell the system how to do that: either in LC-mode or in VS-mode. In LC-mode it wants to know at which airspeed and in VS-mode at which vertical speed.
At least in the Airliners in game, when you change the altitude with the auto pilot you have to do 2 things:
- Dial in the new altitude
- Click on the bottom of the altitude adjust knob to tell the auto pilot to make the change.
Just to add a little more detail to GaseousBeatle92’s reply. Selecting an altitude just puts in the height you want, to activate the autopilot to climb or descend you also need to use either the Vertical Speed option or the FLC (Flight Level Change) option. To use the VS option, set the height you want, then click the VS button, then click either the + or the - button to increase or decrease the rate of climb, if you wish to descend then click the - button until the tab to the right of the altitude tape reads the desired rate of descent in hundreds of feet per minute, + for climb or to adjust the rate.
For FLC (my prefered method) , for climbing you need a slightly different approach than for descending.
First, set the alt you want. Then set the aircraft in a climb and at the speed you wish to climb to altitude at and activate the autopilot, this sets a pitch and roll postion, now press the FLC button, the plane will now continue to climb to the set altitude while maintaining the speed, raising or lowering the rate of climb to suit, meanwhile you can select heading or nav for your directional choice.
To descend, set the flight level you require, click the FLC button and once you wish to begin descent, pull the throttle back, the plane will descend and maintain your current speed, you can adjust the rate of descent with the throttle, increasing the throttle decreases the rate of descent and vis versa.
The beauty of the FLC control is that it eliminates the risk of a stall as the autopilot will maintain airspeed, whereas using VS the autopilot maintains rate of climb at the expense of airspeed, no problem if you are paying full attention (as you should be) but if you get distracted you can find yourself stalling unexpectedly, I would hazzard a guess that most sim pilots have experienced this one!
2 Likes