I recently bought my first Carenado product, the Piper Seneca II for FSX on which I had my eyes for a long time. I want to use it primarily for IFR which is what I like to practice.

 

I already took the a/c for a few short rides to get acquainted with its handling. In looking at the cockpit I couldn't find how to set the Altitude for the Autopilot. I looked at all the PDF documents and printed them out in B/W (color printing costs a whooping $1.25/page) but can't find any reference to the altitude setting of the autopilot. There is the autopilot to enable/disable HDG, ALT, APP but I see no autopilot altitude display.

The Seneca is one of my favorite sim aircraft. Unfortunately i am not in front of the computer and its been a while since i have flown it due to building a panel. I do not remember there being a way to set altitude. You climb or descend on your own and select the altitude button once you reach your desired altitude. That was one of the reasons i grew to love flying it. Basic controls which required more pilot input but enough to give you help when you needed to focus on other flight items.

 

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Thanks, as I found out on another forum that is how it works. In fact there is a lot about this autopilot module that is not explained at all by any Carenado documentation. What an oversight I must say... Luckily I found the Bendix King KFC-200 documentation that explained it better.

I have been playing with my new Seneca, in particular with the autopilot to get the hang of it. I noticed you said the ascent/descent switch works in increments of 100 FPM, then I said the Bendix manuals say it is 500 FPM but apparently Carenado took some liberty and in their rendition of the a/c the autopilot autopilot vertical trim seems to work at +/- 100 FPM intervals. Works pretty well once you get the hang of it though it doesn't seem very responsive to the ascend/descend commands.

One hundred foot increments are FS default, and there's no way to change that behavior.

 

The stock commands are simply:

1. AP_VS_VAR_INC
   
2. AP_VS_VAR_DEC
   

I would also point out that the autopilot command contols in FS are seriously screwed up... :wacko:

Although that may well be the default - you can change that in the gauge code...

 

Most simply: execute the increase several times for each button click B)

I have been playing with my new Seneca, in particular with the autopilot to get the hang of it. I noticed you said the ascent/descent switch works in increments of 100 FPM, then I said the Bendix manuals say it is 500 FPM but apparently Carenado took some liberty and in their rendition of the a/c the autopilot autopilot vertical trim seems to work at +/- 100 FPM intervals. Works pretty well once you get the hang of it though it doesn't seem very responsive to the ascend/descend commands.

 

The manual I have, states that the increment depends on the ALT hold mode.

 

If not in ALT hold, it operates in smaller increments.

 

If in ALT hold mode, it sets a 500 fpm climb or descent and turns off ALT hold.

I also noticed the a/c doesn't come with a load manager (somehow I thought it did) but even so, when I look at the default situation the center of gravity (COG) without load other than pilot & copilot is way off, someplace in front of the wing towards the nose.

 

Placing passenger weights, leaving front bagagge empty and putting bagage in the rear compartment to try to bring the COG back would result in an overweight situation.