Yesterday I finished my fifth flight in a row where I had zero AP issues in contrast to my first few flights all being more or lease ruined by AP issues. I also noticed that early flights the planes couldn't hold an assigned flight path without weaving back and forth or up and down and now seem to be handling both fine. I'm trying to determine if the variables simply fell into place to make this appear like a fix, or if fixes may already be getting applied.

or maybe you get used to their proper workings....? some planes work better than others

Just now, wim123 said:

or maybe you get used to their proper workings....? some planes work better than others

It's not the former. I would be flying with AP on and suddenly the plane would just take a header for no apparent reason. It hasn't done that in days now.

The impression I get's that they're not necessarily as common a you would think from reports. Personally from my experience the autopilots in the airliners generally work without issue most of the time, albeit handling the aircraft a tad rough certainly. With that said they certainly do happen, for example I had issues with the 787 autothrottle yesterday and had to handle that myself, they just don't happen every flight.

Are you pausing less? I know active/live pause is liable to create issues in some aircraft.

Edited August 24, 20205 yr by ckyliu

Ah, that could be.

Indeed, active pausing is a real no-no if you're using the autopilot.

I think a lot of the initial issues were due to incorrect or conflicting control bindings (I know mine were) - and now people are now settling on their config.

That said - I didn't see a G1000 glidescope meatball until a day ago - but that might just be because it works in one 'plane and not another. And of course I now can't remember which...

Has anyone figured out how to use the autopilot in the JMB Evolution?  Either I haven't figured out how to use it, or it just isn't implemented.  Not sure which.

 

I'm not sure if it was me but I used the live pause on a flight with the Bonanza the other day and I'm sure that on un-pausing my airspeed had bled off and the plane stalled. The autopilot was in a 200ft climb with heading hold enabled.

I've also had a problem on both types of pause whereby the autopilot adds full up pitch trim and causes all sorts of issues; could be related to above. The only answer is to disengage the autpilot, fight the stall, trim back down, and wait for it to 'get a grip' 🙂

 

50 minutes ago, Matt Barraud said:

I'm not sure if it was me but I used the live pause on a flight with the Bonanza the other day and I'm sure that on un-pausing my airspeed had bled off and the plane stalled. The autopilot was in a 200ft climb with heading hold enabled.

I've also had a problem on both types of pause whereby the autopilot adds full up pitch trim and causes all sorts of issues; could be related to above. The only answer is to disengage the autpilot, fight the stall, trim back down, and wait for it to 'get a grip' 🙂

 

Yeah or disengage autopilot before you hit pause so the autopilot doesn't run your trim all the way up.

I just don't use Active Pause for that very reason.  You activate it when your speed is decreasing even a little and you'll be at zero airspeed in no time.  I mapped the "regular" pause and have a lot fewer issues.  

People should definitely check their keyboard bindings for sure too.  I had ctrl and shift z as time acceleration, but z is autopilot on/off.  Once I unmapped that, my autopilot disconnects a lot less.  

Any soft of time acceleration seems to cause the AP problems though.  Anything beyond 4x doesn't work reliably in my experience, especially if you hit turbulence.  

Haven't used time accel. since FSX days. No the "travel to" option seems a lot more attractive.

I think they are doing updates where silent updates are possible. For example, when the sim was new, selecting a high altitude IFR flight plan did not spawn a suggested SID, and now it does. It might be coincidence (I haven't tested it on the same plans). 

Has anyone determined what purpose this "active pause" is even supposed to have? The regular pause seems to work almost exactly the same, just without the problems.

Apparently when you use active pause the AP continues to trim the aircraft, so coming out of active pause on AP can lead to erratic behaviour. 

 

EDIT: now read all thread and realise it's already been mentioned 

Edited August 24, 20205 yr by hanhamreds