I am someone who has never played a sim before or flown an airplane
When i turn on auto pilot it sometimes let the plane fly without me having to pull on the yoke/lever to continue flying straight and no need to adjust trim etc
I assume thats how autopilot should work but a lot of times i press on autopilot and the plane goes crazy like it wants to dive like crazy and kill itself idk if that is a bug or am doing something wrong
Also if anyone knows when i trim it keeps going down or up I can’t like get it to stay on the horizon no matter how much or little i press is that normal?
It depends on the mode of the Autopilot. It is way more than just a trim and fly straight assistant. Depending on the mode it tries to track a heading, an altitude, a vertical speed, a nav signal or a gps path. Before you enable it make sure that you have applied the right settings
I am pretty sure i experienced the autopilot diving down on most airplanes i flown
What i remember are the tbm turboprob, both diamonds airplanes, Cessna 172 and the cessana turboprop i think
Also it happened the most to me when am flying over rio near the christ statue
But generally happens anywhere i go
Hard to say with limited details, and the differing aircraft. Double check that before you engage autopilot, you have either the ALT engaged or the VS engaged and that they are set correctly.
Some aircraft, if you simply engage Autopilot, and VS mode, it will automatically revert to your current rate of climb / descent.
Maybe next time, preset your altitude to say 5000 feet before takeoff, and any VS figures to +500fpm. After takeoff and at 500-1000 feet, engage the autopilot and the VS mode and see if it still dives? Depending on the aircraft itll either accept the preset VS mode, or itll revert to your current VS and then you can adjust it.
It sounds to me that you havent preset an alititude in, and its probably set to zero. Then when you are trying to engage autopilot you are porbably going nose down a bit as you look for the switches and make adjustments, and the autopilot is engaging with the current VS of say -400fpm and attempting to descend to the un-set / preset altitude of zero…
My assumption is that there is one general purpose FMC/autopilot structure for the default included airlines. This is suggested by the sim having one set of keyboard commands under the autopilot heading.
So we should be able to proceed from here to set down recommended “orders of engagement” for the different functions that will give most sim flyers the best chance of satisfaction right now even though speed and altitude may struggle.
So, before takeoff with a high altitude IFR plan, I will set something reasonable in the 4 readouts: climb out speed, heading, cruise target altitude and target rate of climb, then push autothrottle and autopilot once clear of the ground.
I invite the developers to give us a bit of guidance based on their knowledge of the internal relationships of these functions. I am sure they want us to have the best chance of success while they get around to working on the “struggle” issues.
Similar issues with autopilot. Sometimes it works as expected, sometimes it rolls the aircraft into the ground. Yes, this is on HDG, and with the heading bug set correctly.
In my case, what I’ve seen it in a few aircraft now is that the trim can get stuck in full nose up or down as soon as soon as I enable the autopilot, even in a mode that has nothing to do with vertical control (e.g. heading or NAV).
I have checked my keybinds and they all appear to be okay (only have a trim HAT on my stick assigned to trim), so unless I’m missing something, this isn’t because of some weird, conflicting or unintended input error on my end.
If I use my HAT for elevator trim, it will move back towards the center position, but as soon as I let go, it will slide back to full nose up. This results in too much AoA, and simply stalling.
The workaround I’ve found to work about half of the time is to first take manual control again by disengaging AP, and then I need to grab the trim wheel with the mouse and roll it all the way to the other side (full nose down, if it was up, or vice versa). IMPORTANT TO NOTE here is that this will result in an immediate nose dive, so this can be deadly at low level.
After doing that, I can try the AP again and if necessary repeat the process, or enjoy the view as my ride takes me to my destination.
There are probably more variables than I thought. There are easy to hard piloting modes. Different levels of assistance. Mix this in with sometimes working speed and altitude.
My landings have been worse than bad. I think that if the sim samples the joystick infrequently, one can get this. I and the sim might be a control loop with very late arriving error correction. In other sims, I can land OK.
I currently am CPU limited in an Alienware laptop. If I spring for a desktop intel motherboard, I should be OK someday.
I found I can have a satisfactory experience in the Dreamliner. I have it follow the Lnav while I supervise altitude and speed. When in range of the landing guides (on an IFR plan), switch to approach mode for a soft landing. It takes over autothrottle. The arrivals are a bit fast, but smooth, and you stop on the runway if it is long enough.
Having discrete switches for autothrottle, altitude, AP, Lnav and approach helps the sim at this stage of its development. I haven’t been able to work these functions out on the Airbus. Some of them may be assumed.
I don’t think you can change your arrival runway on your own during the flight and expect approach to work. Your arrival runway is in the FMC on the last legs page.
Autopilot in Dreamliner. If the dreamliner is missing an LNAV turn, just click the LNAV button off and back on and LNAV following will wake up. I have been able to wake up autothrottle in a similar way during climb and descent. In cruise, the autothrottle is controlled from somewhere deep in the program. It seems to like Mach .87 giving around 500 Kts over the ground at 38000 feet. I can live with this.