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Old May 9th 07, 05:15 AM posted to rec.aviation.piloting,rec.aviation.student
Robert M. Gary
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Default Autopilot questions for small GA aircraft

On May 8, 4:19 pm, chris wrote:
On May 9, 11:09 am, "Robert M. Gary" wrote:





On May 8, 2:28 pm, Kev wrote:


On May 8, 1:39 pm, "Robert M. Gary" wrote:


I think you'll find that it is very odd for a high performance single
to not have some sort of an autopilot. In my personal airplane I have
a single axis autopilot that can follow the loc, vor, etc. Most of the
time I use it on heading mode.[...]


I'm not that familiar with Mooneys, but I thought all they had full-
time was a simple wing-leveler. I didn't realize it could also be
slaved to LOC, VOR, HDG. Is that normal, or an option or ?


Thanks!
Kev


The basic system was a vac driven system that was just a full time
wing leveler. Later models (such as mine) included an option for the
"PathFinder" autopilot, which is fully electric and has a selector of
leveler/heading/nav1/nav2


-Robert


So is the wing leveler fighting with you when you want to go round a
corner??- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -


Technically the way you would initiate a turn is to tell the wing
leveler to make a standard rate turn left or right. It has a 3
position switch on the TC, straight, left, right. So they expected you
would either fly around the pattern using the turn director or hold
the override button down the entire time. Of course the autopilot is
also easily overpowerable.

-Robert