Really good idea, great for that new Altamax ultralight. I'll be downloading!

This looks great! Apologize if I missed it, but will this work for jets (already fitted with an autopilot) as well? I almost always hand fly without autopilot, but this would be superb to step away when the Blackhawks are on the powerplay! 

 

Cheers, Pete

 

Hi Pete,

 

It will in most cases work just fine where an autopilot is already fitted, but how the co-pilot 'holds' the plane, in that case, will depend on the settings in the aircraft.cfg.

 

To work properly, the [autopilot] section of an aircraft fitted with the co-pilot really needs the following entries to be set with the following values:-

 

default_pitch_mode=2

 

default_bank_mode=1

 

these particular values are rarely used where an autopilot is fitted (most use '0' or '1' for both values).  

 

If you're prepared to change the values to the above, the co-pilot will work perfectly - but this could change how the AP first behaves when turned on.  (eg. whether it initially levels off or holds pitch, or does nothing, until a roll and pitch mode are chosen).

 

PS... if you have these values shown in the aircraft.cfg (mainly used by Carenado/Alabeo), they must be deleted for the co-pilot to work.  NB. These values are entirely redundant and don't need to be there at all (since FS9!) :-

 

use_no_default_pitch=1

use_no_default_bank=1

 

Setting the above 'default_pitch/bank_mode' values to '0' has the same effect as the above values, so they are entirely redundant, but still show up in a surprising number of aircraft.cfg files.

 

Hope the helps.