When do you use autopilots?

"The Visitor" wrote in message
...
Working 14 days a month? Yes. But there is very little of it. Not even on six
month rides.

In lighter aiccraft there is lots of hand flying, all but the enroute phase. I
know people still flying large jets whose autopilot is so poor, they do the
terminal maneuvering and approach by hand, no choice. And in some crummy
locations (mountainous). And only having one simple one, autoland is out.

Do you sit there at your sim, droning along for 3,4,5,6,7,8,9 hours enroute,
handflying? What aircraft/route are you asking about?

The post you are responding to is from a person who is a simulator game pilot,
only. He is a troll, and nothing he posts has any relevance to real aviation.
Please ignore his posts, and talk to real pilots.
--
Jim in NC

The Visitor writes:

Do you sit there at your sim, droning along for 3,4,5,6,7,8,9 hours
enroute, handflying?

No, but I was wondering if I was "cheating" by using the autopilot.

What aircraft/route are you asking about?

At this very instant (thanks to autopilot), I'm flying VFR from KPHX
to KSAN, via GBN JUDTH MOHAK WARTT BZA ARGUS IPL NICKK KUMBA PILLO
CANNO BARET RYAHH HAILE KSAN. The GPS unit is handling the routing.
I picked 6000 feet MSL for most of the flight because the manual says
the Baron is highly efficient at this altitude; I'll go briefly to
8500 to get over the mountains on the way in to San Diego.

If this is the way real pilots use autopilot, fine. I just don't want
to do anything that would handicap me in real flight (I'm not sure how
experienced real pilots are supposed to be in hand-flying).

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Reasonable.

I must ask and encourage you to at least take a discovery flight at a
local flying school. Have you ever given it a try?




Mxsmanic wrote:
The Visitor writes:


Do you sit there at your sim, droning along for 3,4,5,6,7,8,9 hours
enroute, handflying?


No, but I was wondering if I was "cheating" by using the autopilot.


What aircraft/route are you asking about?


At this very instant (thanks to autopilot), I'm flying VFR from KPHX
to KSAN, via GBN JUDTH MOHAK WARTT BZA ARGUS IPL NICKK KUMBA PILLO
CANNO BARET RYAHH HAILE KSAN. The GPS unit is handling the routing.
I picked 6000 feet MSL for most of the flight because the manual says
the Baron is highly efficient at this altitude; I'll go briefly to
8500 to get over the mountains on the way in to San Diego.

If this is the way real pilots use autopilot, fine. I just don't want
to do anything that would handicap me in real flight (I'm not sure how
experienced real pilots are supposed to be in hand-flying).

Mxsmanic wrote in
:

The Visitor writes:

Do you sit there at your sim, droning along for 3,4,5,6,7,8,9 hours
enroute, handflying?

No, but I was wondering if I was "cheating" by using the autopilot.

What aircraft/route are you asking about?

At this very instant (thanks to autopilot), I'm flying VFR from KPHX
to KSAN, via GBN JUDTH MOHAK WARTT BZA ARGUS IPL NICKK KUMBA PILLO
CANNO BARET RYAHH HAILE KSAN. The GPS unit is handling the routing.
I picked 6000 feet MSL for most of the flight because the manual says
the Baron is highly efficient at this altitude; I'll go briefly to
8500 to get over the mountains on the way in to San Diego.

Is this route off-airway? What is the OROCA in that area? 8500 is not an
IFR altitude, so unless you will be changing to VFR on top, you'll probably
either be at 8000 or 10000 in real life. I don't know the area well enough
to know for sure...

It sounds like you have some ideas of what it takes, but you really should
get some formal training. If you're that afraid of flying, you should at
least go to a Ground School course. They are not typically very expensive,
but they are very informative. Another alternative might be to purchase the
Gliem test prep books.

Mxsmanic wrote:
Do you use autopilots on short trips (along the lines of an hour or
so)? Do you use autopilots systematically on IFR flights?

I use autopilots whenever strategically advantageous.

Is it bad form to use the autopilot for a 25-minute flight?

Sometimes it's BETTER FORM to use the autopilot on shorter flights.
Enroute is generally a lot of inactivity. Takeoff and landing
is the busy part of IFR. Best to off-load onto George when
you are busy.

tried KPAE-KTIW under IFR both by hand and with autopilot, and
autopilot is a breeze in any weather whereas flying by hand is
troublesome even without any wind or turbulence. I try to fly by
hand, but the lure of the autopilot is strong sometimes and I use it
to get some rest.

Turbulence can actually be more difficult on the autopilot. It
wants to hold you to course and altitude and tends to overcontrol
to stay there. Hand flying you're willing to take the slight
deviations because you know it will even out in the long term.

"Ron Natalie" wrote in message
m...
Turbulence can actually be more difficult on the autopilot. It
wants to hold you to course and altitude and tends to overcontrol
to stay there.

Some AP's require you to disengage during moderate or stronger turbulence.
There's also a big difference between rate-based and attitude-based.

Hand flying you're willing to take the slight
deviations because you know it will even out in the long term.

As long as one does not over compensate.

In article ,
"Matt Barrow" wrote:

Some AP's require you to disengage during moderate or stronger turbulence.
There's also a big difference between rate-based and attitude-based.

Is there such a thing as pure "rate-based" vs. "attitude-based" in modern
AP's any more? Back in the days of steam gauges, each state variable
involved another mechanical data pick-off and gobs of discrete circuitry,
so controlling one variable at a time made sense.

In a glass cockpit, I would think you would grab all the data that's
available and come up with a control strategy which mixes inputs.

Ron Natalie writes:

Sometimes it's BETTER FORM to use the autopilot on shorter flights.
Enroute is generally a lot of inactivity. Takeoff and landing
is the busy part of IFR. Best to off-load onto George when
you are busy.

I'm confused. Are you saying that autopilot should be used on
take-off and landing?

It seems that most autopilots aren't much help with take-off and
landing, beyond following an ILS approach most of the way in. Large
aircraft have fancy stuff that can autoland, but I don't know if small
aircraft can be equipped in that way (?).

Turbulence can actually be more difficult on the autopilot. It
wants to hold you to course and altitude and tends to overcontrol
to stay there. Hand flying you're willing to take the slight
deviations because you know it will even out in the long term.

Interesting. Are there any fancy autopilots that are smart enough to
deal with turbulence?

On a commercial airliner, wouldn't it be preferable to let the
autopilot wrestle with the turbulence in order to avoid upsetting
passengers with more radical movements in hand flying (assuming that
the pilot does not attempt to correct for minor movements from
turbulence)?

--
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