Going through the tutorial flight, I find that hitting the autopilot is done rather late. If memory serves me correct (don't have the tutorial with me) prior to take off you select HDG and ALT SEL and press the GA button on the throttle. Then with condition levers in flight and full power you rotate at the correct speed and pitch up to about 12

You have to have the aircraft trimmed before taking off. If you are maintaining significant back pressure to maintain airspeed during the intitial climb, you will find that releasing the back pressure will nose the plane over. If memory serves me correct as well, you would engage the autopilot at around 800 ft AGL. OR once you have configured the laternal modes and have reached the correct climb out airspeed, in the case of the tutorial, it's around 170-175 knots.However, if you have engaged VS rather than IAS as the autopilot mode prior to engaging, the autopilot will track your CURRENT status you have selected, either VS or IAS when you engage the AP.

There are probably as many good techniques as pilots, and I will defer to the JS41 rated pilot of which I am not.I don't use the GA button for takeoff, assuming it is only used during go around to tell the FD what is going on.I preset the AP to HDG and VS mode during pretakeoff, setting VS to about 1200 if I am heavy (1000 if I am also high).After takeoff power is established, I rotate to about 10-12 deg at Vr and raise gear on positive rate of climb and use FD steering bars until above 400 AGL and then engage AP and raise flaps.. the speed at this point may be around 140KIAS. I continue to climb in VS mode until reaching 170KIAS and set the IAS mode.Seems to work for me. I sure there are other ways some better.

Chad,You're pretty much right-on with the procedure, with one exception. Press GA first, THEN press HDG and ALTSEL. Otherwise GA mode cancels all other FD modes.Once you've reached 170kt, go ahead and press IAS, but all this does is tell the FD to pitch for airspeed. It won't actually do it without the autopilot on.Also note that IAS mode will do whatever you ask of it, without question. So if you're climbing at 170kt with the autpilot on, and you run the thumb wheel quickly to 200kt, you're probably going to start a descent. This is realistic.The most realistic way to use IAS mode is to either manually fly the aircraft to the desired speed, THEN press IAS. Or, use VS to gradually gain/lose airspeed until you've reached your target speed, THEN press IAS.Nick

As Dan says, there are as many good techniques as pilots.I do use the GA button, which sets the FD to 8 degrees nose up and wings level. At Vr, I rotate to the FD pitch, and on positive rate, raise the gear. Passing the green bug speed, I select flaps up -- this is a tad slower airspeed than when Dan does it -- then engage the AP at about 500 ft AGL. I select VS (which will maintain the current rate of climb), choose a lateral mode (HDG or NAV) as appropriate, and arm ALT SEL. Like Dan, I allow the aircraft to accelerate, and select IAS mode at 170 KIAS. The bottom line is to know your aircraft's capabilities and limitations, think it through, and have a reason for every step you perform.

Maybe another theory would be the motivation to keep the Autoflight uncoupled and handfly the takeoff/departure until safely past V2+10-15 or VYSE (Best single engine rate of climb) so that if in the event of an engine failure/loss of engine thrust that the pilot flying is already ontop of the plane and can react quicker than the coupled autoflight systems can... Abnormals for most aircraft for an engine malfunction would be to uncouple autoflight anyway. Bottomline, durring the critical phases of flight you want one of the flight crew controlling the aircraft. JB

Thanks for all the replies everyone. I will be sure to try out all suggestions and see which way works best for me.Chad