I'm having some problems using the autopilot on the CRJ 700. No problem setting heading and speed, that works fine unless I'm trying to get it to follow the flight plan in the GPS, then things get strange. Altitude hold is hit or miss at best. Sometimes when I enter an altitude, say 13000, the AP will point the nose either straight up or straight down and I have to scramble to turn it all off if I am to recover at all.

 

As for using the GPS with the AP, it only works sometimes... I think I may be performing the whole action out of sequence.

What I do is this:

 

1. While on the ground, I set the dials for heading, speed, and altitude but do not engage either of those three buttons.

2. After take off and after the initial climb to near the cruising altitude and turning to the initial heading, I engage all three buttons for heading, speed, and altitude then engage the AP button.

 

If the AP is in a good mood, everything goes well and the aircraft makes correct maneuvers to hold heading, speed, and altitude.

 

If the AP is cantankerous, it will either point the nose in the air or to the ground or change heading to whatever. It has done both altitude and heading at the same time creating a pretty large pucker factor.

 

Now, let's say the AP is operating perfectly and I want to have it follow the flight plan in the GPS, I switch knob from "NAV" to "GPS" and usually, the AP simply ignores it...once in a great while it will start following the flight plan.

I seriously doubt this is a problem with P3D but rather operator error on my part. I simply can't figure out where I'm going wrong.

I found it! I found it! There's a button labeled "Nav" over on the AP!