I used to do the same when I started flight simming with FS98... it‘s... working. But you have no feelibg about the yoke position, don‘t ever need the elevator trim and your controls are always moved to either side, elevators and ailerons. I am honestly wondering that you haven‘t run into further issues doing this :D

20euros/dollars and you have a 3 axis joystick.  

3 hours ago, scandinavian13 said:

That's probably it. Nudging the mouse while the AP is active is seen as a control input. To be honest, if you're into the realism our products are intended to provide, even a basic flight stick would be a huge improvement.

What do you recommend? Because I know absolutely nothing about the hardware side of flight simming.

These are good examples.  A joystick does not have to be expensive.  Go to your local computer shop or department store, they sure have something that is suitable for flightsimming.  Most are plug&play and easy to install.

Robert,

AH!  I know precisely what is happening, because I did this a few times while trying to test something on a keyboard-flown installation last week.

Presume for a moment that you are using the Up/Down arrows to control the elevator.  When you rotate to take off, you click the Down arrow a few times to raise the elevator and increase the pitch...  The airplane leaves the ground as you would expect.

If you then click the autopilot ON- your simulator is seeing the autopilot ON, but the elevator is being deflected...  So it presumes you want control of the pitch channel and it disengages from controlling that axis and draws the amber line through the pitch mode to signal "hey dummy- this one is for YOU to worry about."

On a keyboard flown installation, you have to make DOUBLE sure that you trim the elevator to neutral before engaging the autopilot.

You can do this by bringing up the STAT page and looking at the elevator deflection indication- then trim until it is "pretty much" centered.  THEN give it over to the A/P and you should be good to go.

I hope that helps- but i would definitely look into getting yourself even a basic joystick to enhance your control of the simulator.